Environment and Sustainability

By focusing environmental and public-health debates on the issue of waste-management, plastics producers have managed to conceal the elephant in the room. But governments and consumers can no longer ignore the fact that plastic is a problem at all stages of its life cycle – not just after it ends up in the ocean.

Since the early 2010s, Israel has been working diligently to position itself as a frontrunner for smarter and cleaner means of transportation. To that end, the Prime Minister’s Office launched the Fuel Choices Initiative in 2011, a governmental program for advancing alternative fuels and means of transportation. 

"Carbon majors," like big oil and gas companies, have long been the focus of efforts to curb climate change and stem rising temperatures. And yet, while energy giants like Exxon and Shell have drawn fire for their roles in warming the planet, the corporate meat and dairy industries have largely avoided scrutiny.

Geoengineering technologies are not yet deployable globally, but support for them is advancing fast, thanks to backing by powerful advocates eager to start experiments. But no silver bullet for climate change exists, and we must not abandon proven methods for the sake of a promise that one will be found.

With states, cities, and citizens willing to double down and move ahead with climate commitments, the global community can still count on many Americans’ willingness to act responsibly in support of global climate actions, even if their White House is not. Unfortunately, such activism will not make up for the failure of the Trump administration to make good on its international climate finance obligation.

Plastic pollution is a defining problem of the Anthropocene. It is, after all, a global scourge that is entirely of our making – and entirely within our power to solve as well.

The food that we eat plays a big role in the search for solutions to climate change. Agriculture is one of the major contributors of greenhouse gases. But the way we farm our land can also be a big part of the solution.  

March 23rd was the last in a series of 14 day-long sessions billed as "stage one" of the year long Galilee Climate Fellows Program envisioned and implemented by the Town Association (TAEQ) and HBS partner The Heschel Center for Sustainability; in and of itself, a Jewish-Arab cooperation. Launched just a few short months ago, when nobody yet knew what fruits this enigmatic name of a program would bring.  

With the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in 2017, Itach-Maaki initiated a process aiming to create a civil society action plan for the implementation of SDGs in Israel, focused on the mitigation of poverty and inequality, advancing peace and gender equality and a society that is better for its diverse members. The process will include two phases in the year 2017 and will continue through 2018.