More clean tech innovation from Israel? Researchers Prof. Moti Herskowitz and Prof. Miron Landau from Ben Gurion University in Israel were recently awarded a highly competitive Israel Strategic Alternative Energy Foundation (I-SAEF) grant to further their groundbreaking research in liquid fuels. Herskowitz heads the BGU Energy Initiative, which is developing multiple alternative fuels from solar […]
Middle Eastern olive oil producers are baring the brunt of falling oil prices Olive oil prices have hit a 10 year low, severely impacting producers in Spain, Italy , Greece and Protugal- which produce more than 60 percent of the world’s olive oil. However, Middle Eastern Farmers in Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, Libya, Israel and Palestine will […]
Ayala Moriel has captured and bottled natural Middle East smells and made them into natural perfumes. With captivating names, perfumer Ayala Mor from Canada has distilled the best scents of the Middle East and has turned them into bottles of perfume. From Israel, her scents are reminiscent of her roots: the Old City in Jerusalem, […]
Israeli Opera Festival 2012 will feature five performances of the classic opera, Carmen, June 7 to 11 at Masada. According to the Israeli Opera’s Artistic Director, Michael Ajzenstadt, 50,000 people from across Israel and all over the world are coming to experience opera at the lowest point on earth, beneath the mountain of Masada and […]
Can there be ways to protect olive oil prices and the sustainable ways of olive farming in the Middle East? The price for olive oil has dropped to its lowest level in a decade and farmers in the Middle East are bearing the brunt as Spain and Italy dump their government-subsidized stocks at below cost. […]
Experts are calling on Israel to completely enclose its borders with a barrier to keep out ‘floods of climate refugees’ Around two months ago, a small piece of research carried out by the University of Buffalo found that in environmental disasters, humans tend to make things worse. Rather than getting together to resolve issues, the […]
As Israeli rigs start drilling for natural gas, a new disaster prevention agency is proposed to avert another BP-Florida Gulf disaster. Environmentalists have proposed a new government body that might head off ecological catastrophes on Israel’s Mediterranean coast. The new agency could set policy more efficiently by streamlining the powers currently shared by several different […]
Galmidi Yitzhar and the industrial designer Yaksein Eliran won first place in a design competition for a new underground train station in one of Israel’s most vibrant cities – Tel Aviv. Borrowing inspiration from some of the city’s most iconic features, such as its ubiquitous collection of Bauhaus architecture and the Ficus Microcarpa trees planted […]
Seeing a prototype Better Place EV car is a lot different than the real thing on the road. Photo by Maurice Picow More than five months have passed since Shai Agassi’s Better Place electric car company put its first 100 Renault Fluence EV on Israeli roads. The event was covered with a certain amount of […]
In wealthy Western countries, renewable energy developments are a source of progress, pride and smart business. For Israel and Jordan, two Middle Eastern countries severely lacking in water and energy resources, renewable energy is a matter of survival. That’s why there’s been a new green twist to the Trilateral Industrial Development Foundation (TRIDE), founded in 1996 as […]
Will there be less public peeing on the streets now there’s a high tech public toilet in Tel Aviv? Haaretz reporter Roy Arad recently wrote that in all his career as a journalist he has never seen people so happy as the Israelis that have just used 2 The Loo on King George Street in […]
In Israel the organic food market is still comparatively small and underdeveloped. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz organic food only comprises one and half percent of Israel’s agricultural output. A whopping 90% of it is exported abroad, mainly to European markets. An annual Agriculture Ministry survey in 2011 discovered that 37.4% of the organic […]
Headphones kill pedestrians and cyclists who can’t hear traffic. Israel proposes new legislation to ban the music while cycling. Israel is rapidly becoming a nation of bikers, from cycle-tourism to the bike-sharing program that earned Tel Aviv municipality a Green Globe Award this year. But it has proven a risky method of transit on crowded streets. Sunday, […]
Wild Boars are hunted illegally as well. Photo:Haaretz/Nir Kafri Wildlife in Israel have always been under threat from economic over-development and hunting, including poaching by migrant farm workers. Illegal poaching and outdoor hunting in the country has now reached levels that could soon result in some animal species becoming extinct or unable to naturally sustain […]
The World Wildlife Fund and the Cleantech Group recently published a report saying that Israel is the second best place in the world to develop green technologies, second only to Denmark. Israel has long been a major exporter of such innovations, a leading developer of water-saving technology, such as its agricultural inventions, and solar power. Now Israel is starting to […]