Back to School

I haven't been posting much lately, as I have become a bit busier this past month. After 10 years, I am going back to school. I signed up for the International Environmental Studies masters degree program at the Porter School of Environmental Studies at Tel Aviv University. This is the first year of the new English language program, but it is based on the Hebrew program that is internationally recognized, and many courses are taught by the same Professors.  I have 15 classmates and they range in experience, from an Economics masters, a school teacher, a variety of social science majors, and several environmental studies undegrads.  Some are just out of undergrad, but I discovered that my German classmate shares my birthday - yes, my exact birthday!

The last week of October was orientation week. We began on Monday and Tuesday with meetings on campus at Tel Aviv University.   I had to temper my expectations for organization as the University runs like the rest of Israel - they don't seem to get too concerned about the details. ID cards weren't ready, course offerings were not finalized (and therefore neither were syllabi), online access was not yet available, and yet we were being asked to meet deadlines utilizing these tools. To our program coordinator's credit, it appeared that our class was considerably more organized than other programs. But she was running into the same institutional barriers that we were, and working feverishly to address them.   As an American who immigrated to Israel about 10 years ago, she has been wonderful in helping us navigate this new experience.

Wednesday and Thursday of orientation consisted of a "Tiyul," or field trip. We were taken north to Israel's national water carrier, Mekorot, for a tour and lectures about the country's water sources. Israel has only one fresh water lake as I have mentioned before - the Sea of Galilee, known locally as the Kinneret. It also has two natural aquefers in the north. Already over 30% of their water comes from desalination, and this is expected to become 50-70% in the next 5-10 years. They re-use grey water (waste from homes) at a rate of 78%, far beyond any other country in the world. They treat it, then send it out for agricultural use.

We stayed overnight at a simple kibbutz hotel, common in the north, then visited one of the few significant year-round water sources (I would call it a stream, but they call it a river). It is in the Banias Valley (We visited this site with my dad last May, when it was rushing full of muddy water from spring rain. This time it was clear.)

Our last stop was the Hulu Valley, where feeding practices have made it a major stop on the bird migration from Europe to Africa and back. We saw pelicans and cranes by the thousands. They gave us a brief demonstration of the bird research they do here, and I released one of the tiny tagged birds.

In case you are interested in learning with me, our pre-program reading included:

1. Tal, Alon, Pollution in a Promised Land: An Environmental History of Israel, 2002. Chapters 1, 2, 12.

2. Meadows, Donnella H. "Envisioning a Sustainable World," 1996. http://www.sustainer.org/?page_id=107

3.  Hardin, Garret "The Tragedy of the Commons",

Science, December 1968, Volume 162, pp. 1243-1248. 

http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_the_commons.html

4. Lovins, Amory; Lovins, L. Hunter; Hawken, Paul "A Road Map for Natural Capitalism," 1999.

http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/NC99-08_NatCapRoadmap

Summer Reading

Two books that I read over the summer, and highly recommend:

Last Child in the Woods:  Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv

Changing Planet, Changing Health:  How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do about It, by Paul Epstein and Dan Ferber

I have run out of free reading time outside course assignments at this point, but I will try to share interesting course readings this year as well.  There have been some great ones already in the first four weeks - in Environmental Economics, Ethics, and Corporate Environmental Strategy. 

Lots to think about, and maybe even to build a career around....

Finished my beginner jewelry class

My 11 sessions of metal jewelry making classes are over.  In addition to the two rings, I made a pendant (right) which required sawing out a design, saudering the thin sheet of silver to a thicker one, saudering a raised, open edge (this was a technique they wanted us to learn), and then using acid to change the color of the silver.

My final project was a pair of earrings in which square stones needed  be set.  I found some little moon stones, and designed these silver flowers to go with them, with the flower stem acting as the piece through the ear.

I also snuck in a little extra project between waiting for assistance from the teachers, which you can see on the right side of this photo - small rounded and hammered silver stud earrings. 

I hope to continue learning, but need to see how demanding my masters program is first.  Even fun activities lose their appeal when they become another thing you have to squeeze into a week.   

Visiting Dubai

I am glad that I joined Dan to "see" Dubai for a few days back in March, but I wouldn't want to live there.  And I don't have any particular need to go back.  It impressed me as a screaming example of what is wrong with the world.

Shortly after my visit, I saw this article - UAE minister reveals that Dubai is amongst the top producers of waste in the world .  I noticed a lot of wasted water to create green grass around highways, A/C cranking with doors open, and what appeared to be a culture based entirely on consumerism.

Dubai is steel and pavement plopped down in the middle of a totally dry, arid desert.  The road noise makes the outdoors unpleasant (as does the heat). 

All the beaches are private (this made me appreciate the fact that the entire shoreline of Tel Aviv is designated public, so the hotels and rich can not prohibit the rest of us). 

There were a few remnants of the traditional culture that we saw, including building design with an open steeple that draws airflow into the building and acts like natural air conditioning.  We could learn from that.

We went up to the observation level of the Burj Khalifa (the building I am standing in front of).  From there I took the photo of the city from the sky.  The air quality was never clear while we were there.

The malls are bigger than the entire town that I spent my childhood in, LaConner.  We walked through to see the indoor ski area (see photo with Dan).  Otherwise it was too much, at least for me, as I do not enjoy shopping in general, and this was definitely shopping on crack.

Dubai is probably the most liberal Muslim place in the middle east.  But even here, practicing Muslim women are usually covered head to toe, sometimes including face masks, and accompanied by a man to go out of the home.  The reason for this, as I understand it, is that men can't control themselves, so women need to hide.  This sounds incredibly disrespectful to both genders.  It doesn't give any credit to either's ability to act as mature adults.  I want to have an open mind, but any culture where the rights of women are less than those of men feels too unjust for me to accept. 

As I said, it was interesting to see once.  I wouldn't have made a separate trip for it though.  There are MANY more interesting and meaningful places in the world.

 

Ford Motor Co. Day of Caring

Each year thousands of companies have an employee volunteering day.  Ford Motor Company is no exception.  They call it the Ford Global Week of Caring.   

Two weeks ago we went out to a small reserve (although typical in size around here) to help mark the trails.  We worked with a guy from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.  He has a PhD in marine biology, and is responsible for a large area of coastline just north of Tel Aviv. 

There is a line in the dirt in the picture to the right that is hard to see, but he told us it was a turtle track across the trail.  There are also fox prints, so this may have been the turtle's last trek.  

I'm always amazed by how much life can exist in dry climates with limited vegetation. 

And the Movement Spreads

When I said Americans should take a page out of the Israeli book with civil disobedience protests, I didn't know it was coming so soon.  It is clearly in it's infancy, but over the coming weeks we will see if Americans can accomplish what the citizens in other countries around the world have had varying degrees of success with - fundamental change in their government and it's priorities.

Today is the first I have heard of these protests, although they have been going on for over two weeks already.  This article talks a little about the lack of media focus on this growing movement.

It will be interesting to see where Occupy Wall Street goes....

Northern Israel

We've made it up north a few times in the past year.  It's only 1-2 hours driving, but there's a mental divide.  It has usually required visitors from abroad to make the trek. 

We had just such an excuse in early September.  We drove north and saw the Roman aqueduct ruins by Casarea, had a snack at a favorite winery visitor's center, and spent the night in Nahariya, the northern most city in Israel.  We enjoyed a delicious seafood tasting menu dinner at the port of Akko, an arabic town inside a 2500 year old fortified port.  The top right photo is of the port as we walked around before dinner.  The middle photo is a mosque inside the fortress walls.

The next morning we visited Rosh HaNikra, caves in the cliffs at the border of Israel and Lebanon.  I was here with Dan in 2006, but we didn't do the cable car and cave tour then.  In the afternoon we drove inland and took our friends ATV'ing in the Golan mountains.  Then we drove home to refresh, before dinner and our friends' flight back to Detroit.  It was a whirlwind 5 day visit!

Although the climate is obviously quite different, and I am not sure I could ever love living in a semi-arid climate the way I love the temperate rainforest at home in the Pacific Northwest, it is a wonderful place to visit and see.  We have only made it out camping once so far.

It was back in June.  We joined local friends at the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) for our first overnight camping experience in Israel.  The lake is the lowest fresh water lake in the world, and that means the air temperature is HOT!  It was almost unbearable, even in the shade.  We slept outdoors under a canopy which turned out to be better than those with tents because the slight breeze kept it comfortable for the night.  Unfortunately the campground was packed with families, in close proximity, so it felt more like an outside city park sleepover than camping.  But we had a great time and felt a bit more like locals ourselves.