Black plumes go airborne from burning Byblos Carpet Factory fire in Lebanon. Lebanon has had more than its share of various air and surface pollution issues in recent years. Some of these issues have included dumping loads of garbage straight into the Mediterranean; as well as a giant garbage mound in Sidon that is so […]
Heap leaching or dump leaching extracts nickel using a very toxic process. Turkish environmental groups are calling for increased awareness against toxic waste dumping like that in Lebanon. Toxic dumping is taking place in the Caldag region, about 60 km east of Izmir, where a mining concession was given to a UK mining company, Sardes […]
“Let the world see the openness of Israel,” wrote one participant. Fortunately, mostly positive press dominates the Naked Sea photoshoot, which took place on private property along the shores of the salty lake. Prior to the Spencer Tunick photo shoot at the Dead Sea this Saturday, international coverage of the famed artists latest installation was […]
The Dome of Khan Younis: As Palestine puts a bid in for statehood later this month, local Palestinians volunteer to repairing mosque damage.
Beit Hakerem, an upscale “green” Jerusalem Neighborhood may not be so green underground due to solvents contamination. Israel’s soil and ground water is constantly being threatened by a number of different kinds of pollution. This pollution is caused by oil and gasoline leakage from gas stations and oil storage depots, and by large garbage landfill […]
Professor Mohammed Kassas in his office at Cairo University, photographed by Louise Sarant If Hassan Fathy is the Middle East’s father of sustainable architecture, then Mohamed Kassas is the prophet of desertification. The spry ninety year old Egyptian Professor of Botany told Almasry Alyoum that his love of nature sprouted in a fishing village along the […]
A planned dam in southeastern Turkey would submerge Hasankeyf’s 10,000-year-old cultural relics and displace 50,000 people from the region. How many kilowatt hours is that worth? Electric energy demand in Turkey is projected to more than double over the next decade, to approximately 450 billlion kilowatt-hours. Traditional sources of power, such as coal- and natural […]
Arwa speaks to environmental lawyer Polly Higgins about ‘Ecocide’, corporate eco-destruction, water scarcity and why we shouldn’t give up on climate summits just yet Polly Higgins is a lawyer on a mission to bring serious environmental destruction to an end. Whilst this may seem ambitious, she insists that using the legal system to outlaw environmental […]
How much recyclable material will this new Mazda have when it goes to the shredder in 2030? Lat year 2010 was a record year for new car sales Israel, according to an article just published in Globes. The article reports that 216,430 vehicles were bought during the year, a whopping 25.3 % more than in […]
Natural gas fields off Israel’s coast. A submerged gas pipeline to Greece will be even more ecologically problematic. Israel is considering a plan to build an underwater natural gas pipeline to Europe as a way to transport gas being drilled from offshore wells in the eastern Mediterranean. The plan, as reported August 30 in Globes, […]