We never thought to use tehina in baking, but this recipe produces the most meltingly delicious cookies you can imagine. If you’re looking for ways to use up your flour before the Jewish Passover holiday coming up, try them. It takes only 25 minutes and six steps from raw ingredients to placing them in the cookie jar. Advice: hide a few for yourself before they disappear.

Tehina Cookies Recipe
Yield: about 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

200 grams soft margarine
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup tehina. If there’s a layer of oil floating on top of the jar, stir in back in.
2 cups plus 4 Tblsp. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
Optional: 2 Tblsp. pine nuts and powdered sugar

Method:
Preheat the oven to 160 C – 325 F.

1. Cream the margarine and the sugar together.

2. Add the vanilla and the tehina and blend again.

3. Combine the flour and the baking powder; add to the tehina mixture.

4. Form balls the size of walnuts and place them on a greased baking sheet. The dough is dry and crumbly, so squeeze it together to make the balls.

If adding the optional pine nuts, do it like this: form one cookie ball; take 2 or 3 pine nuts into your left palm, and with your right hand, press the ball onto them. Reverse it onto the baking sheet. If the ball crumbles slightly, just squeeze it back into shape with your fingertips.

Bake for 13-15 minutes. Do not bake longer. The cookies need a little moisture to retain their shape and not crumble. Cool the baking tray on a rack, and don’t touch the cookies for at least 5 minutes. If they’re handled while hot, they will fall apart.

Dust with powdered sugar when they’re cool.

Enjoy!

Other green-inspired recipes you’ll enjoy:

Photo of Tehina Cookies by Miriam Kresh

Nissan’s all-electric LEAF gives a run for Volt’s and Better Place’s money. Nissan has no plans, however, to target infrastructure-poor Middle East.

The battle over which company will market the first practical electric car is becoming more intense with the introduction of Nissan’s new total electric LEAF model. The Japanese carmaker is marketing this new entry into the electric car market as being one which is totally electric, as compared to hybrids and GM’s Volt model (which also has two engines, even though the gasoline one is only used for charging the batteries for the electric engine).  I’ve compared the Chevy Volt to Better Place’s Renault prototype model, and pointed out the differences between the two concepts.

Th Better Place-Renault model can travel for around 160 km or 100 miles on a single charge, and then can either be recharged at a plug-in “charging post” or simply driven onto a lift or special platform, where its lithium ion or “Li-ion” batteries will exchanged for newly charged ones in a matter of minutes. How does this compare to the LEAF? And will the LEAF be available to curious readers living in the Middle East? Apparently not, says Nissan’s CEO.

Nissan, which is a partner with Renault, seems to have jumped the gun on the French carmaker, which is also going to be selling Z.E. (zero emission) total electric cars in 2011.

Although not mentioned specifically in their advertisements, both Nissan and Renault may very will be using electric car technology designed by Better Place, which involves the above mentioned battery exchange stations, allowing drives much more driving “range”.

The Leaf is being marketed as a more affordable electric car, which besides having the same “between charges” driving range as the Volt also offers an IT global information technology, which will “connect” drivers to a global data center, to provide support, information, and entertainment for drivers 24 hours a day.

The car will also have an on-board remote-controlled timer can also be pre-programmed to recharge batteries.

Video on Nissan’s LEAF, what it looks like and how it works.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The LEAF will first be manufactured at Nissan’s Oppama Japan plant, and will later be made elsewhere, including at a large facility in the American state of Tennessee. Although the car will be available through Nissan’s world-wide network of importers and dealerships, the success of owning one will depend on the accessibility of charging stations or “posts,” many of which are being planned to be installed in places like parking lots at shopping malls, train and other public transport stations, as well as in parking spaces in housing complexes.

A full battery charge takes about 8 hours, using a 200 volt current; but ‘quick charges’ for batteries not completely drained will be able to recharge a battery sufficiently enough in 30 minutes to get home from work or from the mall.

No room for a green leaf

Availability in Middle Eastern countries will depend on modernity of cities and residential neighbourhoods. So far Nissan has decided that countries that aren’t environmentally aware won’t be a target, and that includes Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi’s National reports that there will be “No place for a green leaf in the desert.”

In the National, Carlos Ghosn, the chief executive officer of Nissan and Renault, was in Abu Dhabi for the global launch of the 2010 Nissan Patrol 4×4 vehicle. And while he said the Middle East was shaping up to be “the main market” for the Patrol, the reverse is true of Nissan’s forthcoming electric Leaf car.

His words:

“The Middle East is not a prime target for electric vehicles,” Mr Ghosn said at a press conference, citing a lack of government interest in the region for zero-emission cars. “We give priority to governments who are ready to provide incentives for electric cars, like infrastructure,” he said.

::Nissan

Read more on electric cars:

GM ’s Volt vs Better Place’s Renault Electric Version
Build Your Own Electric Car
Denmark Set to Spotlight Electric Cars at Global Climate Change Conference

But if there were less cars on the road (and fewer people riding alone in their cars), those drivers really could get where they wanted fast.

Five young Egyptians who got sick of sitting in traffic during their morning and evening commutes decided something had to be done.  They started Egypt Carpoolers for those who are “fed up with traffic, pollution, gas prices and stress related to driving in Egypt.”

How does Egypt Carpoolers work?

It is a website where ride offerers and ride wanters can meet.  The steps are simple: register on the website for free, offer/request a ride, and start carpooling.  (Or, in other words, start reducing carbon emissions, saving money, meeting new people, and hopefully getting to work faster.)

In describing how Egypt Carpoolers got started, the website explains that “the idea for EgyptCarpoolers.com was conceived on the 26th of July Corridor (more commonly known as “El Me7war”). One of the founders realized, while stuck in traffic 3al Me7war everyday on his way to work in Lebanon Square from Sheikh Zayed City and back, that most of the traffic was made up of cars with only one passenger. Why, even he himself was riding in a car on his own! He asked himself: “why don’t people carpool?” Carpooling would reduce traffic, save money and even help the environment.The answer was very simple. There was no means of communication to connect carpoolers together.”

Carpooling websites exist in many other countries, but apparently this is the first of its kind in Egypt.

A little antsy about sharing your morning commute with strangers?  Check out Egypt Carpoolers’ Carpool Savings Calculator, which will surely push you in the right direction.  And to ease your mind even more, there is a safety system to help users decide whether or not they feel comfortable with certain carpooling options.

Read more about eco-friendly (and money-saving) transportation options::

Car Pool

Better Place Launches Test Drive and Electric Car Education Facility in Israel

Car2Go Brings Car Sharing to Tel Aviv

Mitchell is an acclaimed Canadian writer, skilled in her clear evocation of the destruction of the environment she witnesses around the world, and her unpicking of the scientific reports and data from scientists who are at the coalface of our changing planet.

In this exclusive interview, Alanna Mitchell explains some of her motivation, and shares insight into her exploration:

GP: In both ‘Dancing at the Dead Sea’ and ‘Seasick’ you describe many ecological disasters around the world, on land and at sea. How do you remain optimistic in the face of this?

AM: The ecological disasters are terrible; that part is clear. And we know that human actions are causing the disasters. So my hope lies in my knowledge that we are a profoundly moral species and we are capable of making things better. I choose to hope.

GP: I felt moved while reading about what was going on for you in both these books – in ‘Dancing’ it was the story of your marital break-up and move to Oxford in the UK which became the impetus and then the background, and in ‘Seasick’ it was your fear of water (since near-drowning as a toddler) and efforts to overcome this paralysing fear which became compelling. Both these personal stories co-exist alongside the gritty investigative journalism that has you in boats, submersibles, and wading through forests to uncover the truth about human impact on the environment.

Tell us a bit about your background as a journalist, and the impetus to write both these books.

AM: I cut my teeth as a journalist reporting about complex equity and debt deals with The Financial Post. And while that fascinated me, after three years I felt that I wanted to write about other things people were doing. That led me to spend 14 years at Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, where I became immersed in social statistics that show us the big picture of how people are acting as a society. Eventually, I was posted as a correspondent to Alberta for the paper, where I discovered science issues. After that, I was hooked, and have been writing about science and society ever since.

Dancing at the Dead Sea stemmed straight from a batch of writing I did for The Globe and Mail and from a term of study I did in 2002 at what is now the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University. And I was right at the end of writing Dancing when I realized that I had looked around me to changes on land, and up to changes in the atmosphere but had failed to look down into the sea. It took every ounce of courage I had to face my own demons of the deeps and begin the ocean research. But I did it because I needed to understand the biological significance of the ocean.

GP: Which places and which situations, of the many researchers and local activists you’ve met, stay with you the most?

AM: It’s the children. I can’t forget the starving children of Madagascar, living on the edge of survival as their forest vanishes tree by tree. Then there were Inuvialuit children of Canada’s high Arctic whose way of life will be gone before they are teenagers. Or the children of the Trio tribe of Suriname, living in that glorious intact Amazonian jungle that somehow has not been cut down like so much of the rest of the jungle in that part of the world. I think, too, of the women of Zanzibar, driven by the patterns of the moon rather than the sun, who are struggling so hard to keep their children fed even as they are prevented by custom from fishing, and as the fish vanish. Those women are farming shellfish – very efficiently – and are using the food from the shellfish to feed their families. But so many other Zanzibari women don’t have that opportunity right now.

Video talk with Alanna about on her book, Seasick:

GP: Are your books, and journalism and speaking events, and all the media focus on the state of the planet (including greenprophet.com) having an impact? Are we as a species waking up to the impact we have?

AM: I think the fact that there’s so much backlash right now against the science means that the general public has been taking the science very seriously indeed. It’s taken a huge amount of money, time and cynicism to conduct the attack on science that’s taken place over the past six months.

So we explainers of the science must have been doing something right. And yes, the public certainty on the science has wobbled a bit, but I think the impact of planetary crisis is already so clear that people will soon see with their own eyes the urgency of acting. I mean, the Great Barrier Reef is likely to be gone in 20 years from ocean acidification, ocean warming and the general destabilization of ocean life. We really don’t have the luxury of time.

GP: You were recently in Copenhagen for the COP15 talks. What’s your view on how they ended, and where do we go from here?

AM: To me, the failure at Copenhagen means that we have to work harder than ever at democratizing this very robust body of research scientists have uncovered on the faltering state of the planet’s life-support systems. Most citizens don’t know where to go to get correct, peer-reviewed scientific information and they often can’t read it when they do get it. It’s up to translators of the science to let the public know how very, very compelling a story of disaster the science is telling us.

GP: What are the small steps everyone can do to make a difference to our shared habitat? What are the priorities?

AM: The only priority is lowering the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That’s not just lowering the rate of emissions, but lowering the actual concentration. But as to how to do that? I would never dream of limiting your readers’ imaginations by giving them a checklist!! I know that every single one of your readers has a hundred great ideas about what they can do. I invite them to dig deep into their own gifts as human beings and dream big and then get going. Together, we really can avert disaster.

GP: What are you working on right now?

AM: Lots more science research on ocean acidification, as well as a book on how the human brain learns. That’s because all of these planetary problems are really only problems of human behaviour, and I want to understand us better.

::Alanna Mitchell’s website

Trees tell stories. And it’s not just because you can see and measure their rings. In Israel there are thousands of old trees with history. Serious history. Some have “seen” great battles, heard prophets, witnessed the advent of new religions and the rise and fall of different empires through the ages. The Jewish National Fund cares for many of these old trees and over the last three years has been conducting a survey to determine their “orthopedic” needs and building supports, fumigating them and treating rot when necessary. See this story produced by ISRAEL21c on the story of the country’s trees. We know that not every environmentalist is a tree hugger, but it can be nice visiting the “roots” to green movements around the world, through trees.

While Israel continues to maintain a policy of ambiguity regarding its military nuclear capability, it is making no secret about its plans to pursue a nuclear option to meet its energy needs. The minister of infrastructure, Uzi Landau, officially announced today that Israel seeks to build nuclear power plants in cooperation with “scientists and engineers from our Arab neighbors,” the AP reported.

Landau made the announcement at the International Conference on Access to Civil Nuclear Energy in Paris. Representatives from some 60 nations, including a number of Arab states, are gathered at the two-day conference. Iran, which is suspected of pursuing a military nuclear capability, was not invited to the talks. But Syria, which has also come under scrutiny for harboring military nuclear ambitions, is attending the conference.

The Israeli minister pledged at the conference that all nuclear plants built in Israel would be subject to strict safety and security controls: “Israel has always considered nuclear power to partially replace its dependence on coal,” he added.

Ministry spokesman Chen Lulu said that Landau envisions a joint nuclear project between Jordan and Israel, with French assistance and technology. “He mentioned this three months ago to French Ecology Minister (Jean-Louis) Borloo, who showed great interest and said he would discuss it with President (Nicolas) Sarkozy,” Lulu said.

A potential obstacle to Israel’s plans for nuclear power is the fact that it is not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has indicated that it would not join a Mideast nuclear-free zone being promoted by the United States.

However, the Israeli business newspaper Globes recently suggested that “Israel may be able to bypass this obstacle on the basis of the precedent-setting agreement between the U.S. and India, another country that has not signed the treaty.”

::AP

Read more on nuclear:
Is Israel Coming Out of the Nuclear Closet?
Jordan Explores the Nuclear Option

Marine pollution in Lebanon is becoming so severe these days that local fishermen are catching more garbage in their nets than fish. An article on thenews site Inter Press Service said that Lebanon’s 6,500 fishermen are having with the increasing problem of coastal and marine pollution being caused by large amounts of garbage and other forms of pollution finding its way into the sea. Political ambivalence is to blame.

Abdallah Mokad, one of these Lebanese trying to make his living from the sea, said sadly: “We are hauling in more garbage than fish these days. Much of the waste that gets entangled in our nets comes from the Costa Brava dumping ground, which leads out into the sea. This is illegal but waste truck owners enjoy the protection of politicians.’’

Political ambivalence, which prevents any strong action being taken by the government against those violating the laws that are on the books against dumping of garbage into the sea has resulted in the present situation, picked up by Green Prophet when we reported the large garbage mound off the coast of Sidon.  

Today, the Sidon garbage mound is now so large that ships in the vicinity can “smell it before you can see it.”

The IPS article notes that Lebanese fishermen used to bring in  daily catches of as much as 50 kg of fish such as Sultan Brahim, a local species of snapper, plus several kgs of shrimp.

Now, the catches are much smaller, with only a few kgs of fish and less than a kg of shrimp, among the shreds of plastic material and other garbage that gets caught in the nets. Besides garbage, oil spills, raw sewage, and various forms of industrial wastes is making this part of the Eastern Mediterranean increasingly devoid of fish and other marine life, including birds.

Lebanon’s sectarian governmental mixture, that is becoming increasingly influenced by both Syria and Hizbollah, doesn’t seem to have the power or desire to do much to clean up the country’s growing pollution problem.

Although lawmakers met last May in order to establish “environmental police, courts, a prosecutor’s office … and trained environmental prosecutors,” little has been done concerning these as the country now enters March, 2010.

Besides the pollution problems caused by human sewage and garbage, damage from oil spills, most particularly as a result of  Israeli air raids during the 34 day war in 2006, has resulted in substantial environmental damage from as much as 45,000 metric tons of oil seeping into the sea.

Damage to Lebanon caused by the Israel war with the Hezbollah in Summer, 2006. Image via obbino.

Another, much more recent oil spill occurred when the Panamanian ship Danny F II sank last December 19 in stormy waters about 12 miles off the coast of Tripoli.To make matters worse, the ship was carrying 10, 224 sheep and 17,932 head of cattle, whose carcasses are feared to have attracted sharks to the area, further unbalancing the normal marine life in the area.

Twenty-six crew members are also still unaccounted for and presumed to have become shark food, along with the livestock.

Ali Darwich, environmental and agricultural specialist and general secretary of the non-government environmental organization Green Line said there are 8 major dumping sites in Lebanon, with the one near Tyre, Saida, being the most notable.

“Some two million Lebanese people live along the sea shore and the household and industrial wastes they produce are spilling directly into the water. One has to keep in mind that only one treatment plant exists in Lebanon, and it is responsible only for removing large particles from the sewage system and not important pollutants, such as heavy metal”.

Israel, whose Mediterranean coastline is also becoming more and more polluted (especially in the Haifa Bay area), Syria above and Turkey above that, has no doubt already received a portion of Lebanon’s coastal pollution. The question is how much? And how can activists from all countries join together to stop this atrocity?

More articles on Lebanese pollution:
Sidon’s Garbage dump Creating Eyesore and “Smell sore” for Entire Region
Lebanon’s Beaches Become Trash Dumps as More Sewage Poured Into Sea
“Bird’s Eye View” Shows Raw Sewage off Lebanon’s Coast

The Kindle is Amazon.com’s lightweight, portable electronic reader that can hold as many as 1,500 books (eliminating the need for these books to use up precious paper and energy resources).  The display screen is supposed to simulate the look of real paper, with no glare, and many books are cheaper if you buy their electronic version for the Kindle.

Green Prophet is proud to be joining the Kindle’s current selection of New York Times Best Sellers, US and international newspapers, and magazines.  We are definitely in good company and happy to be distributed in such an eco-friendly format.

So how does Green Prophet work on the Kindle?  When you subscribe to get GP on your Kindle (click here), it is downloaded automatically so that you can read our stories even when you’re not wirelessly connected.  And don’t worry about the format – unlike RSS readers which often only provide headlines, on Kindle you’ll be able to read the full text and see the images from our stories.

To start getting your Green Prophet subscription delivered conveniently to your Kindle, just sign up here at Amazon’s special Green Prophet page. We would love to hear about your experiences reading GP on Kindle, and about using the Kindle in general. And if you really love, we’d appreciate a rave review on the Amazon website.

::Green Prophet on Kindle

Read more about green reading::
Sustainable Reading: The CEO of Eco-Libris Speaks
Friedman’s “Hot, Flat and Crowded” – The Perfect “Green” Starter Book
Book Review of Precycle! by Paul Peacock: So You Can Do Better Than Recycling

(Photo Credit: Jim Davidson) Jewish leaders were among 50 religious leaders who prayed and visited Capitol Hill together during the week of February 22 to tell US legislators that action on climate change is urgently needed.

Religious faith and concern for the environment should really go hand in hand.  If you believe in God and in God’s creations, then you are invested in protecting and caring for them.

Here on Green Prophet we have repeatedly demonstrated the correlation between religion and the earth.  To name a few related stories, we have written about Islam’s green agenda, the Eco-Rabbi series, and interfaith environmental initiatives.

The concern for the environment among the faithful was demonstrated during recent weeks by the National Religious Coalition on Creation Care (NRCCC) in the US.  A delegation of approximately 50 people from a variety of backgrounds and religions met in Washington D.C. from February 21-24 for the NRCCC’s annual Washington Week and National Prayer Breakfast on Creation Care.  The delegation’s mission was to remind legislators of the moral need for strong environmental legislation now.

The NRCC, which brings together Catholics, Jews, Evangelicals, Protestants, Bahaiis and Buddhists (among others), describes its mission as “serv[ing] God and the health of creation by bringing together the formal environmental policy positions of religious institutions and by communicating those positions to elected officials and government leaders.”

Mirele Goldsmith, who was one of the 50 religious leaders in attendance, said that “during the Prayer Breakfast, I addressed the gathering, saying in part: ‘As Jews joining together with other people of faith, we look to our Government with hope, and we urge our elected representatives to show leadership and commit themselves to act courageously to set a new course for our country and our world.  Judaism teaches that human beings are made in the image of God and that we have responsibility to emulate God.  We have the ability to be creative, to give sustenance, to act with compassion.  We have the capacity to end our consumption of dangerous polluting fuels, to expand our use of alternative means to provide ourselves with energy, and restore natural systems we have degraded.  May we cherish the Earth, and act swiftly to protect all of creation from the threats of climate change.”

Read more about interfaith environmental initiatives::

Inter-faith Initiative Pushes to Mobilize Billions in Fight Against Climate Change

Sulha’s Environmental Message: If Jews, Muslims and Christians can Live Together, the Environment Will Benefit too

Rabbi Julian Joins with Other Faiths to ‘Love God, Heal Earth’

New “green” products, like biodegradable garbage bags, are a hot topic. But it’s usually best to manage with fewer products instead of buying more, even if they are “green.”

In most cases, biodegradable bags pose less danger to landfills and groundwater and are a better choice than conventional garbage bags.

When biodegradable bags start to decompose, the nutrients from your garbage go right into the earth. But what if you have spray cans, batteries or other contaminants in your garbage? Using a biodegradable bag will increase the likelihood of dangerous chemicals leaching into the ground.

Here are tips for using fewer garbage bags:

Create less waste by using up leftovers, shopping carefully, avoiding disposables, and choosing products with less packaging.

Reuse bags from gifts and purchases for your garbage cans, especially for non-biodegradable items.

Separate. Peels, plant cuttings, cores, newspapers and shells can be composted and turned into fertilizer for plants.

Recycle cartons, papers, newspapers, cans, plastic and bottles.

Batteries should be placed in collection bins for that purpose only. Don’t forget the small batteries found in toys and watches.

Consider skipping the bag, especially for dry waste. Dump contents of your garbage can straight into the larger bin.

Do you have tips for greener household garbage? Please share them in the comments.

More garbage-reducing tips on Green Prophet:
Drinking Beer in Cans and Other Middle Eastern Recycling Problems
Ten Ways to Buy Less When You Breastfeed Your Baby

For tips on making less garbage by preserving food, using leftovers, and cooking from scratch, see Hannah’s website Cooking Manager.

Image via