Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet

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There is something in Jerusalem  I've been wanting to show you  for months now.
ABC Wednesday G day reminded me:
Cool Globes against global warming!

I learn from their website that

 Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet, is a public art exhibition designed to raise awareness of solutions to climate change. 

Cool Globes grew out of a commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2005, and was incorporated as a non-profit organization in 2006.  Since that time, Cool Globes premiered in Chicago and went on tour across the country from Washington DC to San Francisco, San Diego, Sundance, Los Angeles, Houston and Cleveland.  In the fall of 2009, Cool Globes opened the first international exhibit in Copenhagen. From there our globes were in Geneva, Marseille, Vancouver, and Amsterdam. It is our hope that the millions of people who have experienced the exhibit, leave with a vast array of solutions to climate change, and with one clear message….we can solve this.

Jerusalem has 18 of the globes on display along the  Alrov-Mamilla Esplanade near  Jaffa Gate.
 

Here are a few of my favorites.

This one is "Solar Power" by Alice Sharie Relevski.

These sweet little religious kids were posing for their parents to take a photo.
They look like they have the world on their shoulders.

All the photos above can be enlarged 2x with a few clicks.

When the exhibit ends at the end of the summer the globes will be donated for permanent installation in Israel, with proceeds from sponsorship going to educational programming on climate change and the environment in Israel.
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Apus apus, the Common Swift, loves Jerusalem

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As the swifts circled above the Western Wall Plaza Wednesday evening, representatives of major faith groups each gave a blessing for the closing session of our First International Jerusalem Symposium on Green and Accessible Pilgrimage. 
Our Jewish Deputy Mayor is on the left, next to a Hindu woman, a Muslim imam, a lady rabbi, an American Baptist preacher, and a man living in the Far East speaking for Shintoism.
You can find more about them in the conference speakers page.

But in my previous post I explained about the Common swifts who return to the Wall every spring and promised to tell you more. 
Here are just a few tidbits I learned in the three days of lectures and round tables:

Prof. Uriel Safrir spoke about the nature of Nature and said that in 40 days of brooding in Israel, each pair of swifts eats 35 million small flying insects.
In this way the birds save us from being "eaten" by these bugs, thus rendering a cultural service, even a disease regulation service.
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Swifts, except when nesting, are in continual flight.
Unlike other birds, they cannot just jump up off the ground and start flying.
They need to be a least 2 meters high to jump out and get enough lift to start flying.
That's why they like to nest in the nooks and crannies of old stone walls and old buildings.
The problem with modern architecture is that buildings are so tightly made, of glass and steel or whatever;  no room for the swifts.

So, as Prof. Yossi Leshem revealed, the Israeli army donated 2,000 old ammunition boxes and school kids in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv  made them into swift nest boxes.
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Lotan Center writes that  "Leshem has established (with the Israel Ornithological Center) a peace and education initiative, Migrating Birds Know No Boundaries, that allows about 250 Israeli and Palestinian students to track migrations.
 Students meet at the Latrun center to study and band birds. The German and American governments help sponsor the initiative."
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See more such blessed initiatives in Prof. Leshem's abstract of his Symposium lecture "Birds: Pilgrims without boundaries."
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Our government rightly declared birds to be a national heritage.
The Bible long ago talked about birds in Israel:

"Even the sparrow finds its home and the free bird her nest where she laid her young,"
says Psalms 84:4.
 גַּם-צִפּוֹר מָצְאָה בַיִת, וּדְרוֹר קֵן לָהּ--    אֲשֶׁר-שָׁתָה אֶפְרֹחֶיהָאֶת-מִזְבְּחוֹתֶיךָ, יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת--    מַלְכִּי, וֵאלֹהָי

In Jeremiah 8:7 the prophets says, "The turtledove, the swift and the crane observe the time of their coming."
 גַּם-חֲסִידָה בַשָּׁמַיִם, יָדְעָה מוֹעֲדֶיהָ, וְתֹר וסוס (וְסִיס) וְעָגוּר, שָׁמְרוּ אֶת-עֵת בֹּאָנָה
Indeed, these birds never fail to arrive at the Western Wall (the Kotel)  right on time.

See Chabad's nice article on The singing stones of the Kotel. 

Here's a nice little video of the swifts and those who love and help them, from last year's ceremony at the Wall.
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And how swift are swifts?
At level flight they can reach 70 miles per hour!
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(Linking to Camera Critters meme.)

Swifts at the Western Wall, birds as pilgrims

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The First International Jerusalem Symposium  on Green and Accessible Pilgrimage all this week was very educational and downright inspiring.
Here are some of the experts and lecturers, who came from many different countries and faiths.

 
On the last evening we walked from the International YMCA (the conference venue), through the Old City, down to the Western Wall.
As you see from the sign [enlarge the photo with a click or two], Jerusalem makes an official ceremony every year at this time to welcome the Common Swifts back to Israel and back to their nesting places inside the Wall.

Deputy Mayor Naomi Tsur, the prime mover of the Symposium, told us that these birds have been returning to Jerusalem for thousands of years.
In fact, they usually come on exactly the same day every year.

Prof. Yossi Leshem, champion of nature and birds in Israel, enthusiastically told how the swifts fly north from southern Africa, nest in the wall and raise their young for about three months, then fly south again. 
They fly incessantly for the next three years, never stopping, even mating on the wing.

Enlarge the photo and look for  two sickle-shaped swifts in rapid flight.
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I'll be sharing lots more about the conference and about the swifts in the coming days, but meanwhile please see this video of the swift welcoming ceremony of 2012.
You can see the birds circling around and around above the Western Wall Plaza.
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See the map of the nesting places inside the Wall here.
Care was taken not to block the entrance holes when the Wall was cleaned and fixed recently.
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See also the abstract of Yossi Leshem's conference lecture about birds as pilgrims without boundaries.
The swifts also nest in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity! 
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Exciting! -- Just a few days ago Common Swift chicks hatched in the Schieff House in Tel Aviv.   Watch them through a LIVE  webcam.
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UPDATE: A Franciscan Media Center video of the Symposium's opening night gala is now available in English.
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(Linking to Camera Critters and Sky Watch Friday.)