“Byron” sounds like the name of a British friend coming to visit you in Israel. The kind you take for a tour of Masada and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and in the evening, go bar-hopping together in Tel Aviv. But Byron is not a friend, it is a warning. Five years ago, in a cooperation agreement between Israel, Greece, and Cyprus, a decision was made to assign names to extreme weather events in the Eastern Mediterranean region, in order to provide early warnings and increase public and governmental awareness for advance preparedness. This type of extreme weather is a reminder of why the alliances we have today with our neighbors to the west are so important, and how beneficial stronger and broader alliances with those to our east can be for our future.  

Earlier this week, the UN released a troubling report written by hundreds of researchers and climate scientists from dozens of countries, containing grim predictions regarding the pace of climate change. According to the latest assessments, the rate of global warming is faster than previously estimated, and the planet’s climate is about to enter unfamiliar territory that is difficult to predict and hard to model. One manifestation of this........

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