The Dubai government’s Emirates National Oil Co (ENOC) has stopped supplying subsidized gasoline to gas stations in neighboring sheikdoms in the United Arab Emirates. Hit hard by the property crash, the once high-flying Dubai government is now penny pinching. Even at the risk of destabilizing the region – in the same way that rising food […]
Large public escalator systems, like this one, can operate “greener” by using InnoSave’s energy saving systems. Electric motors, running on both direct and alternating electrical current have made our lives much easier, ever since they were invented by such people as Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. The use of sophisticated electric motors are also being […]
Outside temperatures often reach into the mid-fifties (celsius!) during Middle East summers. Construction workers feel the heat. Behind every glamorous building in Dubai are hundreds of mostly South Asian workers. Yesterday, during a ten kilometer city hike from the Burj Khalifa to Bur Dubai, the quality of life for nearly half of the Emirate’s population […]
Istanbul’s incandescent Bosphorus Bridge will join iconic structures around the world in turning off its lights for Earth Hour this year. For the past four years, Istanbul’s majestic Bosphorus Bridge has been lit all night long by an LED display that consumes electricity at a rate of 90 kilowatts. (That’s roughly 400 megawatt-hours per year, […]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyMNbXVxj8s&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] 20 Israeli cities will be participating in this year’s annual lights-out Earth Hour. Following an initiative that began in Australia in 2007, Israeli cities (spearheaded by Tel Aviv) have observed Earth Hour for the past few years. Earth Hour is a global movement that urges individuals, businesses and governments to support action on climate […]
Robert Ferry and Elizabeth Monoian working in their Abu Dhabi Studied Impact Design studio. Robert Ferry and Elizabeth Monoian have made the United Arab Emirates their home, for which we are very grateful. Their teachings, their design studio Studied Impact, and their public initiatives such as the internationally-acclaimed Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) have coincided […]
With an extra 15% added to electricity and water bills, Dubai’s residents are bound to cut back their consumption. And that is a good thing! Unlike many other Gulf countries, Dubai is not blessed (or cursed, according to some) with fountains of fossil fuels. As such, the Emirate must import the power that provides customers […]
Is marketing Egypt as the next hot spot for high-tech architecture the right way to deflect Dubai’s failure? From an ecological perspective, Dubai is heading towards failure. From an economic perspective, some argue that it already has. How will this improbable city pick up the pieces? Todd Reisz, an architect based in New York City, […]
GE’s Nabil Habayeb connects growth and sustainability without a second thought. Is that still the best model? General Electric has long maintained a presence in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). In addition to setting up an Ecomagination headquarters at Masdar City, GE has recently helped connect Turkey’s electricity backbone to Europe through smart […]
Giant lightbulb installation in Abu Dhabi International Airport forms part of a campaign to reduce energy and water waste. How do we best effect change is a question that environmentalists, marketers, and social activists are constantly addressing. In the UAE, one man hopes to stop reckless driving through a campaign that combines emotion and logic, […]
Reducing overall energy consumption allows more leeway during crippling heat waves across the Middle East. We are all feeling the heat (not just Iran). And though we are cautious about assumptions that global warming is contributing to these higher temperatures, we can’t deny that we are spending a little more time under our fans and air-conditioning […]
Planning is in full swing for ecoQ, an international environmental protection expo taking place in Qatar in September 2011. (From left to right: Haitham Shehab, Dr. Saif Al Hajari, and a member of the ecoQ team) Next September, the Qatar International Environment Protection Expo (ecoQ for short) will be presenting an international showcase of eco-friendly […]
Israel-based design team creates an LED lamp packed with Lycopene and powered completely by tomatoes. Yum. When it comes to energy-saving and eco-friendly design, we’ve seen some pretty nutso stuff already on Green Prophet. We’ve salivated over Hasadna’s ice cream spoon chandeliers, envied Merav Feiglin’s TrashLights, been impressed by Studio Mesila’s upcycled wood laminate lamps, […]
Netanyahu ‘wins’ a Black Globe Award as a statement that he should improve his environmental reform plan, and other organizations win positive Green Globes. Earth Hour wasn’t the only way that Israel celebrated Earth Day this past Thursday – it was also the day that Life and Environment warded its annual Green and Black Globe […]
There will be no green tech conference at this un-conference in Israel. With the Alice in Wonderland craze in full force now, an “unconference” might sound like something the Mad Hatter would organize. If he celebrated unbirthdays, we wouldn’t put it past him to organize an unconference. But alas, no. The green unconference coming up […]