By Florence “Flip” Ross, LuxEco Advocate
We are all familiar with the saying “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” but when I travel through Israel I can’t help but think “When in Israel, do as the Israelis do.” How remarkable they are at accomplishing the impossible.
When they tried to build a harbor in Ashdod, they called in all the experts they could think of to help them do it. The experts from Holland (whom for sure they thought could accomplish this, since their country too was below sea level) told them it was impossible. Imagine their disappointment, but not to be deterred they said: “Okay, we’ll do it ourselves,” and do it themselves they did.
Likewise, while driving through the Negev Desert, I was struck by one side of the mountains being bright green and lush, while the other side was bare and black. The green side was Israel. This remarkable sight was heightened by the hydroponics farms hanging and thriving in the midst of the arid desert. The desert might have been sandy and hostile, and unfit for agriculture, nevertheless it was farmed, productive and beautiful. This is really going green.
If the world were to give as much thought to cleaning up the environment as they do to oil production, what a beautiful world this would be. Imagine no blight, no pollution, no contamination, no oil rigs and no tankers spewing oil into our waters. Too much for which to wish? I think not, but first we must get China to stop polluting the environment on a major scale.
After all, if they could build the Great Wall, with no machinery, they certainly should be able to stop poisoning the air emanating from their factories. If this should prove to be too difficult for them, maybe we could help by stopping our outsourcing of all our manufactured goods to them.
