Situated even deeper in the desert than Morocco and prone to locust swarms, Mauritania’s topography consists of the “mostly barren, flat plains of the Sahara” – as the CIA puts it. They’ve got very little water and less than half of one percent of the country’s land is arable. But they’ve got sun and they’ve […]
Israeli archaeologists are baffled by a giant cone-shaped structure submerged beneath the waters of the Sea of Galilee. Twice the diameter of Stonehenge and weighing more than ten elephants, a mysterious cone-shaped structure on the bottom of the Sea of Galilee is challenging archaeologists to determine its purpose and age. The mound was first detected […]
As if they didn’t have enough trouble on their hands, residents of 15 towns and 45 villages in Pakistan’s Swat Valley have been completely stranded since a bridge linking them was swept away by last year’s floods. This isolation officially ended last Friday when the United Arab Emirates ambassador to Pakistan inaugurated a new 448 […]
Researchers keen to understand the role that dust plays in climate change have discovered that 5,000 years ago, what we now think of as the vast, unforgiving Sahara desert home to nomads and camels was once a green grassland where elephants and giraffe roamed, RD Mag reports. From 11,000 to 5,000 years ago, the 3.5 […]
All over the Middle East and North Africa, governments are feeling the energy pinch, and each has a different solution. Morocco and Algeria are turning to solar energy, so are Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, while Jordan seems more intent on exploiting its oil shale reserves to bridge the soaring gap between supply and […]
Up to 100,000 people died in Somalia during the 2011 famine that devastated the Horn of Africa, and British scientists have reported that climate change is partly responsible. The short rains at the end of 2010 failed as a result of natural variations in weather caused by La Nina, Peter Stott of Britain’s Met Office […]
An old (2010) video clip is making the rounds, clunky imagery of a very cool piece of street art, it's underlying message remains perfectly relevant.
When he first began his career as a young biologist, Allan Savory basically ordered the culling of 40,000 elephants. He and other scientists in Zimbabwe observed that former grasslands set aside as national parks were turning to desert and decided, after considerable research, that elephants were responsible. But it didn’t help to kill them. In […]
Incredulously, despite everything that we know about climate change and its inevitable consequences of drought, food insecurity, rising sea levels and widespread ecological change, certain sectors of society stand steadfast by the suicidal notion that developing increasingly dangerous fossil fuels is “good” for us. Led by ruler-backed organizations such as King Abdullah City for Atomic and […]
Given that 85 percent of the country’s residents lack access to electricity, it is no surprise that Ethiopia has pursued an aggressive hydropower plan. But the Grand Renaissance Dam and similar projects are expected to create significant environmental and social disruptions, problems that the former President Meles Zenawi both denied and defied. But the Ethiopian […]
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Taking irrigated water from the Nile, the Toshka pumping station in upper Egypt was supposed to help combat encroaching desert Political tension in Egypt in the aftermath of the revolution which began nearly two years ago, has hit tourism, led to high food prices, and caused an economic slowdown which is raising food security concerns. […]
Tel Aviv University professors tell Green Prophet that it’s just a matter of time: Tel Aviv will flood again. It’s warming up again this week in Israel, just after a series of storms last week that began with major flooding on the Mediterranean Coast and ended with Jerusalem of Gold turned to white after a […]
Israel, like other rich countries in the Middle East, has had to rely a lot on desalination plants to supply much of its drinking water. Desalination now supplies Mideast countries like Saudi Arabia, which is said to have the world’s largest desalination plant. The country receives almost all its fresh water supplies from this energy-intensive process. […]
Are Jordan’s snow and Israel’s floods signs of climate change or are they simply flukes of weather? People might argue this for decades there is strong evidence that Mideastern climate has changed dramatically over thousands of years and there is evidence that humans can negatively impact their environment over a much shorter time period. The […]