We hope they are able to help in any way they can. This picture was taken by AFP with a satelite. Unbelievable…

From YNET:

Helping to put out the flames

A group of Israeli firefighters travel to Athens to assist their Greek colleagues in conquering the giant fires

Dani Adino Ababa

A group of 25 Israeli firefighters is leaving for Greece after the Greek government approached Israel on Sunday and asked for assistance in fighting the massive fires in the country.

The commander of the group, Moshe Suissa, said the team will contribute their knowledge and creativity. “We were told we will be in charge of a region. We will follow the Greeks’ instructions. Some of us will be stationed in firehouses in Athens and the rest will head to the disaster zones.”

Suissa added that the group will carry with it only basic equipments such as helmets and fireproof jackets.

Tzahi Levi, one of the firefighters on the team, said: “If our Greek friends need us, we will support them as much as we can. We have the courage, dedication and good will that is needed. We leave today but don’t know when we’ll return.”

Holy cow crap! Even if these business savvy environmentalists aren’t on to something, they’re at least entertaining.

From Ynet:

Electricity from cow manure

The GES company of Granite Hacarmel and the regional council of Emek Hefer have activated the first commercial facility in Israel to manufacture electricity from cow manure. The facility , created with a NIS 40 million invesment, will treat 600 tons of manure daily, from 12,000 cows, and will sell the electricity to the Electric Corporation

By Tani Goldstein

The Energy and Infrastructure Company GES, a subsidiary of Granite Hacarmel under the leadership of David Azrieli, and the Emek Hefer regional council, began on Tuesday to supply the Electric Corporation with electricity manufactured from cow manure.

The recycling facility in Emek Hefer is the first commercial facility in Israel - and one of the first in the world - to use organic refuse from dairy farms, mainly from cow manure, to create electricity. In addition to electricity, the facility also manufactures quality fertilizer from the cow waste.

One step at a time, right Madonna?

From our colleagues in the swamp:

Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C.
Press Release
Israeli Ambassador Sallai Meridor Announces Switch of Official Diplomatic Vehicles to Hybrid-Electric
***For Immediate Release*** July 9, 2007
WASHINGTON: Israel has announced that starting this fall, it will significantly reduce the petroleum consumption of its senior diplomats in the United States by switching to hybrid-electric vehicles. The symbolic initiative, led by Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Sallai Meridor, will include Israel’s embassy in Washington, its nine consulates throughout the U.S. and its mission to the United Nations, making Israel’s foreign service among the first in the U.S. to significantly reduce oil demand throughout its entire official fleet.

“Reducing oil dependence and protecting the environment are key factors in improving international security,” Meridor said. “We are proud to be among the first countries to take this small but symbolic step. Our hope is that many small steps taken together will lead to major policy action around the world that will address one of the most critical strategic and environmental issues facing our common future.”

Israel plans in the years ahead to strengthen energy cooperation with the U.S. by developing alternative energy technologies and assisting American efforts to reduce petroleum dependence.
“Israel has always been at the forefront of conservation,” Meridor said. “We believe in the critical importance of embracing alternative sources of energy and advanced vehicle technology to help achieve energy independence and build a sustainable environment.”

To learn more about Israel’s efforts to reduce petroleum dependence, please visit the Ministry of Environmental Protection website , or send an email to israelgoesgreen@gmail.com

Don’t mess with Kibbutzniks…

From the Washington Post:
Man Wrestles Leopard That Jumped in Bed

By ARON HELLER
The Associated Press
Monday, May 28, 2007; 3:07 PM

JERUSALEM — A man clad only in underwear and a T-shirt wrestled a wild leopard to the floor and pinned it for 20 minutes after the cat leapt through a window of his home and hopped into bed with his sleeping family.

“This kind of thing doesn’t happen every day,” said 49-year-old Arthur Du Mosch, a nature guide. “I don’t know why I did it. I wasn’t thinking, I just acted.”

Raviv Shapira, who heads the southern district of the Israel Nature and Parks Protection Authority, said a half dozen leopards have been spotted recently near Du Mosch’s small community of Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev desert in southern Israel, although they rarely threaten humans.

Looks like white is the new ‘black’…

From HAARETZ:

Blinding white

By Shani Shilo

When UNESCO added Tel Aviv’s White City to the World Heritage List of sites designated for preservation, it made white fashionable and desireable. Thanks to the White City’s historical designation, that default color of Israeli architecture is now identified with quality.

“This is a trend that began about 15 years ago as part of Tel Aviv’s branding as the White City,” says architect Sharon Rotbard, author of the books “White City, Black City” and “Avraham Yaski: Concrete Architecture.” “In the mid-1990s, Ram Carmi began to talk about white architecture at the same time that architects began whitewashing raw concrete structures in conjunction with Brutalist architecture - for example, the planned Amal School. Eldar Sharon also painted white the Coor Building - now the Beit Amot Hamishpat Building - which he planned with his father, Arieh Sharon.

“When French architect Jean Nouvel visited Israel, he suggested making Tel Aviv a symphony of white, painting all the buildings in shades of white, and strengthening its identity as the White City, just as Jerusalem is identified with stone,” Rotbard adds.

Oil spills have long been regarded – and rightly so – as a disaster of tremendous proportions. When the occasional spill occurs, often thousands upon thousands of gallons of oil spill out into the water or over land, killing many living beings and contaminating the environment for miles around.

Over the years there have been many attempts made at developing new ways to clean up oil spills, but they have largely remained as they were, horrible disasters which do a great amount of damage to everything in their vicinity.

Until now.

Thanks to Professor Eugene Rosenberg of Tel Aviv, the world may have a great new way to clean up those oil spills: eat the oil.

No, not us – according to this story brought by our friends at Israel21c, Professor Rosenberg has discovered bacteria which literally devour oil and turn it into harmless byproducts. Thanks to Rosenberg’s efforts, a new Israeli company called BioPetroClean has developed a solution that utilizes these bacteria, turning oil spills into simply carbon dioxide and water.

Talk about a different approach. Oh, and it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than cleaning up the oil any other way.

Check out the full story here.

It is shocking to think that over 1.6 million children under the age of five die every year in the developing world from drinking untreated water. We were happy to learn recently however, of an Israeli company that has developed a simple and affordable device that could drastically change such disturbing statistics.

Called the Sulis Personal Purification System (after the Greek goddess Sulis connected with water and healing), the solution comes in the form of a small and lightweight unit that is designed to fit onto most universal bottles and instantly purify contaminated water.

Read more from our friends at israel21c here:

Sulis was a Greek goddess connected with water and healing, therefore it’s also become an appropriate moniker for an innovative new Israeli device which instantly purifies contaminated water.

The Sulis Personal Purification System (PPS) takes all the ingredients needed to transform dirty water into clean water - whether it be for stranded hikers, soldiers in the field, or victims of disasters - and has miniaturized the technology to fit into the top of a cork that can be plugged into virtually any size bottle, container or tap.

Beauty products are a lucrative market the world over. It doesn’t matter what nationality of woman you are, nobody wants wrinkles, skin sagging or dryness. And if we’re talking about skin dryness, who could be better equipped to combat it than a group of women who live in the desert?

For two years now, the Center for Jewish-Arab Economic Development (a non-profit organization founded in 1988 to promote economic cooperation between Israel’s Jews and Arabs) has been working with a group of Bedouin women in the Negev, to develop a line of skin-care products called Asala Desert Nature.

The Bedouin women turn native plants and flowers into remedies for the skin, using the traditional wisdom gathered from their mothers, grandmothers, and other elderly female relatives.

The products will be manufactured at the laboratories of Hlavin, an international cosmetics manufacturer and exporter in Ra’anana. Asala’s Israeli commercial launch is set to take place in the next four to six months. The women are hoping that sales to Europe will follow in the next year, or so.

Read the full story at Israel21c.com

Israel’s Bedouin women turn desert plants into skin remedies

By Nicky Blackburn February 25, 2007

There’s nothing particularly appealing about the Bedouin town of Tel Sheva in the Negev desert. Founded in 1968 as part of a government project to settle Bedouins in permanent communities, the town is poor, run-down and neglected. Unemployment among the town’s 30,000 inhabitants is running high, crime is widespread, and there is little urban or industrial infrastructure. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, only 43% of grade twelve students are eligible to graduate from high school.

So why has this dusty underprivileged settlement been attracting so many visitors? The reason is a new project to help Bedouin women turn native plants and flowers into remedies for the skin.

Once again it is the time of year when window shops are filled with red fluffy hearts with messages of eternal love, when chocolatiers wrap their creations in velvet heart boxes, and florists stock up on red roses- doesn’t it make you queasy?

But seriously, according to Hallmark research, Valentines Day is the second most popular greeting card giving occasion of the year, and probably the most popular day for flowers, especially red roses. Although the history of Valentine’s Day and who Valentine really was and how he became a saint remain foggy, what we do know is that February has long been the month of romance, and what better way to express it than flowers- I guess?

I’m not the only one. So many flowers are purchased on the 14th that flower merchants around the world stock up well in advance. Israel, of course is doing its part, exporting 125 million flowers to Europe. According to the Flower Grower Association, 5000 tons of flowers and ornaments will be flown to Europe ahead of Valentine’s Day to cater for the needs of the Day of Love. And as expected the most popular flowers are pink and red roses.

Climate change is something all global citizens of today’s world have to deal with. Winter in New York has been sadly lacking in snow, while farmers in California are tossing out frost-bitten strawberries.

Globally, we have come to the point where clean air can be traded like a stock market commodity. By cleaning the air, through planting trees, countries can earn credits to sell to others who are causing harmful emissions.

According to a story in Ynetnews.com, trees planted in Israel to replace ones burned down during the War with Lebanon last summer, may enable Israel to join the Kyoto Protocol and earn an income of hundreds of thousands of shekels each year (which could then be used by the Jewish National Fund) to maintain forests.

Israel and the JNF can be proud of a long history of tree-planting in the region. “Making the deserts bloom” may have been Ben Gurion’s dream, but it also a wonderful example to the world of what can be achieved (horticulturally speaking) in climates that are less than ideal.