Poetry lovers take note: from January 8-9, Tel Aviv University will be hosting a conference on literature and the environment, entitled “Poetic Natures: The Environment, Literature and the Arts. ” Guests include US Poet Laureate Robert Hass, a National Book Award Winner and Una Chaudhuri, Professor of English, Drama and Performance Studies at New York University.
The conference is free and open to the public. The central topic of discussion will be environmental poetry in Israel and abroad.
Tel Aviv is the first Israeli city, and the only city in the Middle East to join Earth Hour, a new worldwide campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Lights out for Tel Aviv will happen on March 29, 2008 at 8 pm, so get your solar-powered flashlights handy.
Tel Aviv joins cities in Denmark, Australia, the Philippines, Fiji, Canada and the states.
In a statement, Tel Aviv’s Mayor Ron Huldai said: “We are now at the point in time where we can no longer postpone the issue of climate change. Earth Hour is a beginning, and every city to join can help make a difference by taking responsibility to reduce emissions.”
Israelis are coming around and getting into the recycling spirit. We couldn’t hold ourselves back from posting again on Groovy, the designers who have designed a multi-purpose matkot chair.
Today’s find is a record business card holder.
While records are pretty much obselete in this part of the world (unless you are a DJ), business cards aren’t.
Update 2021: maybe better keep the records for listening. Going analogue has a charm of its own and records are worth more in one piece than cut up as a card holder.
More Groovy designs below:
One of the big issues when the topic of eating healthy comes up is the problem of food coloring. Many of these colorings are actually poisons. The FDA has approved them because they are used in such small quantities that there is no apparent effect on our bodies. But color dyes are not all bad; they can be used, for instance… to create electricity.
Barry Breen’s Jerusalem-based company, 3GSolar (previously Orion Solar) exploits that “at sizes as small as 10 nanometers, the laws of physics take some interesting turns.” He told told Israel21c that he discovered that when light hits titanium oxide particles of this size coated with an organic dye that his cells have a photosynthesis-like outcome. “Just as a plant produces nourishment for itself when exposed to sunlight, our cells produce energy.”
Israelis love playing matkot. It’s like table tennis without a table. And a hard small black ball like a squash ball. It makes an annoying sound at the beach but you can get used to it along with Israelis playing in their underwear which they think you won’t notice.
It’s like a national sport.
Updating the old game is Groovy: designers Danit & Yinnon Simhi. There is no mention about the paints and processes in creating this chair featured abobe, but we think it has a “green feel,” mainly because of its multifunctionality: a funky beach chair and matkot game all rolled into one.
Or how about a chair made from matkot balls?
There is nothing like the combination of words retro and active to describe the activities of Danit and Yinnon Simhi, the couple operates under the name of ‘Groovy.’
These young designers turn their years of collecting into a real profession using their artistic talent and their imagination to bring old and new things to life. Most of the new products designed and manufactured by Groovy, and infused with humor, and are realized as surprising new designs and images.
They have a retro/recycled line, and even a line made from wood which includes a wooden scooter.
The studio is based in Tel Aviv and we are looking forward to posting many more of their creations.
We stumbled onto Designist Dream last week “where art and design and the Holy Land meet,” after the missus in the house gave Green Prophet such a warm welcome to the blogosphere.
We’re already excited about some of the eco-relevant finds Designist Dream has dug up, and will be sure to report on some of them here and on TreeHugger in the near, near future.
For starters, we fell in love with Doodle Doll from Manuella Design (Merav Flam from Bezallel).
The dolls are not huggable because they are made from water-resistant paper, but we like how the toys can be decorated and colored with magic markers, washed and then colored again.
A great gift for the young-ins.
Those in the US don’t have to miss out on the fun, or the chance to support young Israeli designers. See i Design for US distribution.
A long time ago, when we were more idealistic, we spent an afternoon at Salon Mazal. Feeling like an anthropologist, we studied the people who were hanging out there: self-named anarchists, squatters, Arab rappers, earth-lovers…you-name-it.
(You can read the story here).
Anyway, it turns out that Tel Avivian anarchists are not so scary after all. Some of them do have very long leg hair (the girls), and may hate you if you have a job or think Rachel Corrie was a loser, but they have a pretty neat library collection. Books that you are not likely to find at a city library, like on women pirates.
We saw all the signs: the ararchist gatherings at Salon Mazal and the little old ladies picking through the Friday-afternoon veggies at the Carmel Market. Social activists in Israel have joined the international movement in protest of our consumer culture. They are dumpster-divers, and living off of just about everything and anything that you might throw away.
Dana from Tel Aviv, who is a 21 and a waitress, spends more cash on feeding her dog, than herself. That’s because Dana finds most of her food in the trash.
Some who do this complain of getting belly aches (occupational hazard), but “we hate money and this is our alternative,” says T. a 20 year-old musician.
Memos, agreements, bills, pacts, hand-shaking…we’ve heard a lot of talk about Israel and its intent to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The latest episode is yesterday’s announcement that MK Ofer Paz-Pines (Labor party) has submitted a bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Israel.
According to INN, the bill will call for a 25 percent reduction of greenhouse gases by 2010, and 50 percent by 2050. Once the bill is made into law (crossing fingers and toes), then the Ministry of Environmental Protection will be called on to formulate a national emission reduction plan within six months of the bill entering into law.
Hurrah, hurrah!
But wait a minute – the Environment Ministry operates on a sub-par budget and suffers from being able to put its laws into action. The general consensus over here seems to be: break the law, wait to see what happens, and then fight the fines in court.
The catalyst to getting anything done comes from the resourcefulness of the nation’s incredible number of NGOs.Someone in the mood for starting a new one – against greenhouse gas emissions?
We’ve just learned that a national conference on business and the environment will take place in Kfar Maccabiah in Ramat Gan on January 21 – 22, 2008. Organized by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the conference is described as “a meeting ground between business and the environment and creating mutual integration and growth, both economically and environmentally.”
Munching on a Druze pita with Labneh, olive oil, and some zaatar spice.
The Irish call it “the troubles”; over in Israel, they euphemistically call political problems “the situation”. As sad and complicated as the situation may be for every human being involved, a few individuals have risen above the crowd, like oil on water, and banded together to make business over a much-loved Middle Eastern commodity: olive oil. And converts to organic farming are emerging from unlikely places.
Thanks to the help of the environmental group Green Action and the braveness of some entrepreneurial Palestinian farmers, organic and fair trade olive oil is now available in Israeli shops.
Unlike Americans and Canadians, Israelis are none too quick to start building with strawbale and adobe. I did meet a couple pioneers over the last 5 years who have built adobe homes: Lila, a German immigrant who lived near Arad in the Negev and Shai Gonorov, an eccentric Israeli living off the grid in Shaharut, down south near the Egyptian border. After the first winters’ rain (it only rains in Israel in the winter), Lila’s carefully-crafted kitchen melted into the desert sand and Shai, last I read, was giving workshops on mud.
In fact, I helped him once conduct a workshop at a design school for girls in Beersheva. As for strawbale, one well-publicised building was raised in the Negev, to serve as a Bedouin medical clinic. And due to that, strawbale building, for a stint, seemed to get lots of press.
I know of some Israelis who have ventured to the States to meet Athena and Bill Stein (and their charming children) at the famous strawbale ranch in Canelo, Arizona (hi Benito, Oso and Kalin!).
Now why I am mentioning this? This latest article on natural building in Israel appeared in the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz (translated to English) and shows me that the atmosphere for environmental building practices is changing.
According to the article, SBI a soil brick company operating in Israel, has created a magic solution for making mechanical and chemical bonds between components in the soil. Pouring the combined mixture into molds, they say, produces stable bricks that meet the needs of construction, such as strength and water-resistance, even though they are made of soil.
To date, 80 percent of production has been used for export; the rest used for constructing roads in Israel. Here is an excerpt: A strategic plan has been drafted, the services of architects and planners have been hired, and a national training center has been established – and last week, a world expert on the subject was brought here [to Israel] from India to head training sessions for teams of builders interested in unique construction processes. “The concept of building with earth is no longer a gimmick,” says Zeev Halber, CEO of the company.
What has become well known around the world is still not understood in Israel, the article points out. This company hopes to offer a standard and attractive solution to the Israeli building industry to improve environmental building practices and lay the green foundation for the years to come.
Hipsters from the Comme Il Faut fashion house in Israel have opened their own mini-mall, an “anti-mall” they say, in Tel Aviv’s port. It is one which encourages creativity over mass-consumption.
Tel Aviv is a fast and furious place. Days after Gaultier and Gucci release new collections, knock-offs are already on the streets being peddled every which way – especially in the Carmel Market. To combat blind consumerism, Comme Il Faut (“As it should be”) has intervened and invented its own chic line of clothing which makes use of local talent not sweatshops.
Ever try hugging a cactus? That’s why treehugger types are having a harder time in the Middle East.
It’s a bit sad that environmental awareness in the Middle East is years behind that of Europe and the US.
But then again, have you ever tried hugging an olive tree or cactus? Although it may be an adventure, being ecologically aware in countries like Israel is not always so simple. National security and defense most often takes precedence over cleaning up a river; a good chunk of the society is focusing on survival (not yoga classes and organic farming!); and the social barriers between Israeli Arabs and Jews make it hard for communities to band together and demand certain basic rights from industry and the government.
While the Christians are busy unwrapping their presents around the world for Christmas, the LA-based clothing company American Apparel, decided to launch a sale just for the Jews who complain that the only thing they get to do on Christmas day is eat Chinese food and go to the movies. Lucky for the Jews, there is an American Apparel outlet in Israel on King George Street in Tel Aviv; and double lucky, the company carries an organic clothing line.
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