Too Much Sunshine Here

Too much sunshine here? You know how everybody always likes to bitch and moan about the weather all the time? Well they do over here (when not bitching and moaning about the climate).

And they do so with good reason, too. The summers in Germany are often, like this summer, “suboptimal.”

But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to shoot for a little variety now and then when it comes to the weather bitches and moans (bitches and moaners?). The latest spin is that the first half of this year was the sunniest yet on record. And this too is a bad thing, I think.

This means, uh, I don’t know what it means (does the weather ever mean anything?). Or is this climate again already we’re talking about here (climate is meaningful, I think, right?)?

No, this just means that you can bitch and moan all the more about the current crappy weather because you’re being reminded about how much sunnier it was just a few weeks/months ago.

Seit 120 Jahren hat es nur ein heißeres erstes Halbjahr gegeben, so der Deutsche Wetterdienst. Er warnt zugleich vor künftigen Wetterextremen durch den Klimawandel.

Green Glamour?

In Berlin green is glamourous (wow, that’s a no-brainer).

Makes sense, if you think about it. Green certainly isn’t what you would call a “power” color.

But I don’t know. Do you really want to walk around in sustainable clothes all the time? After three or four months of constant wear, that sustainable sweater of yours  may not be biodegradeable any more.

Green Electricity Threatening Energy Turnaround

Yeah, I know. You thought that Germany’s Energiewende (energy turnaround) was synonymous with green or eco-power (I did too). But if you listen to what some scientist types are saying (Rheinisch-Westfälischen Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung or RWI, for instance)–and you won’t, and nobody else will either–the present state of renewable energy in Germany is so clearly deficient and so way too costly (especially when it comes to generating solar energy) that they recommend rethinking the whole big turnaraound thang (not that all that much thinking had gone into it in the first place or anything, that rethinking part was just a figure of speach).

Some of these folks are even starting to call this mess Der große Solarschwindel (The Great Solar Energy Scam). But, like I said, nobody is particularly interested in hearing about things like this. Or do you want the Green Shirts to come knocking on your door one night? And after all, money is no object here. It never is when it isn’t your own.

Es bestehen derzeit in Deutschland so große Defizite in Bezug auf Leitungsbau, Speicherkapazitäten und bei der Vernetzung mit den europäischen Nachbarn, dass es vorerst nicht ratsam erscheint, mit dem Ausbau regenerativer Stromerzeugungskapazitäten fortzufahren.

German Recycling Destroying Umwelt

Bad consumer! Environmental groups are alarmed and warning that the entire German reusable bottle system as we know it may soon be on the verge of collapse. And it’s all because of you, ihr Flaschen (“you bottles,” a German idiom for losers). You’re recyling the wrong bottles (the plastic ones, these are “bad”).

Horror of horrors or something. Just when Big Green Brother finally got you to robotically return your bottles to the reusable bottle robots located at your local supermarket, like you should, for your own good, you start buying more plastic returnables (thinking that these are as “good” as good old glass ones), causing the share of environmentally friendly bottles in circulation to sink from 70 to 50 percent. If this continues, the whole system will become “unprofitable,” whatever that means.

It seems that Fearless Leader’s five-year plan actually called for a percentage of 80 percent of environmentally friendly bottles to be in circulation so you have all failed miserably and will now have to be reprogrammed at your own cost again so that you know better and start buying the good glass recyclable bottles instead. And returning them to the robots (the machine ones). After you have emptied them, I mean (the bottles). Ah, the hell with it. They’ll explain it all to you better later.

Eine bessere Kennzeichnung und ökologisch differenzierte Steuer werden verlangt.

A Country Named Sue

You sue, I sue, we all do (sue). And here I thought Germany was the land of Konsens (consensus – not common sense). At least when it comes to doing this nuclear phaseout thang, I mean. Fooled again.

OK, it is logical and predictable that Germany’s power companies now have hurt feelings and are preparing to take legal action against the government’s decision to shut down their nuclear power plants because, well, the government is shutting down their nuclear power plants.

But what about all the thousands of lawsuits being prepared by power-line, wind energy and other regional resistance group apponents the nation over set to flood the lawsuit market once these big honkin’ power-line thingies start going up? You know, the power-lines that will transport the good offshore wind farm energy from the north to the bad industrial south?

Why can’t we (as in you) learn to live together in simple peace and harmony? Now that the nuclear power dragon has finally been slain, I mean. Come on, folks. Join hands, form a circle, sit down and talk.

Specifically, they will invoke Article 14 of the German constitution, which addresses the question of whether the companies’ assets are being expropriated, and if they are therefore entitled to compensation. After that, the amount of compensation would be negotiated in civil courts. According to internal calculations, the industry envisions a potential sum of €20 billion ($29 billion). The burden would ultimately fall on taxpayers.

The Green Plague (Another Green Shirt Terror Post)

Now it’s tainted German sprouts that have caused the deadly E. coli (Ehec) outbreak (but remember, the source of the outbreak seems to change here every few hours–ask Spanish organic cucumber farmers). Sprouts? That’s another one of them there green organic foods, ain’t it?

Anyway, one German Spiegel reader who goes by the name of alex300 is mad as hell and isn’t going to take it anymore. I feel his pain and stuff. He writes:

“What have we learned from the organic crisis?

1. That green organic farmers can cause more damage than Chernobyl and Fukushima together. How many deaths have been attributed to Fukushima? Just one worker who died of a heart attack. How many deaths do we have to thank for the green organic madness? More than 2000 contaminated by health stores and organic sprouts, about 1000 of them with irreparable brain and kidney damage, and 21 dead.

2. That biogas plants are much more dangerous than nuclear reactors. An atomic reactor can contaminate a 30 km area around it, max. The multiresistant bacteria that breed in biogas plants can wipe out all of humanity.

No power to the green organic plague!”

I hope alex300 is feeling better now. I sure do. For now.

Was haben wir aus der Biokrise gelernt?

1. Die grünen Biobauer können viel mehr schaden anrichten als Tschernobyl und  Fukushima zusammen. Wie viele Tote hat Fukushima verschuldet? Nur einen Arbeiter, der an einem Herzinfarkt verstarb. Wie viele Tote haben wir dank dem grünen Biowahn? Mehr als 2000 verseuchten durch Reformhäuser und Biosprossen, ca. 1000 mit irreparablen Hirn- und Nierenschäden und 21 Toten.

2. Die Biogasanlagen sind wesentlich gefährlicher als die AKWs. Ein AKW kann maximal 30 km Umgebung gefährlich verseuchen. Die multiresistenten Bakterien, die in Biogasanlagen brüten, können die ganze Menschheit auslöschen.

Keine Macht der grünen Bioseuche!

German (Carbon) Footprints in The Sand

What are we cheering about again? (This is another one of those Green Shirt terror posts.)

In a democracy, you can say A, but you can also say B, just as you can rely on the assumption that nothing has to last forever. Everything can be changed, amended, courses reversed. In short, the very life and soul of democracy is that there are always other options.

Germany’s federal government is now abusing that basic rule in a scandalous way. There can be no doubt that the country needs to be looking at a smart mix of different energy sources for the future, and that developing viable alternatives to atomic power is an urgent necessity. Yet the manner in which the federal government has rushed to its decision to put a definitive stop to the use of nuclear energy by 2022 runs counter to all rules of democratic procedure. It began when, for politically motivated and tactical reasons alone, the government went back on the agreement made last fall — just seven months ago — to extend the life span of nuclear power plants. After the Japanese plant Fukushima began leaking radiation, it felt compelled to cede to public pressure by making a rapid move away from atomic power. Backtracking in the blink of an eye, the government moved so quickly partly out of fear of the Greens, and entirely without discussion or reflection.

… Germany has shown no respect for the energy policies of other E.U. countries, and particularly no trace of consideration for the East-West split that exists in Europe over nuclear power. Instead, Germany has chosen to go it alone on this issue, assuming a kind of avant-garde, “moral high ground” role that is not always going to play well elsewhere.

Die Bundesnetzagentur schlägt Alarm: Wegen des Atomausstiegs befürchtet die Behörde bereits in der kommenden Woche zu Pfingsten Schwierigkeiten beim Stromtransport.

PS: And lest we forget…

Germans To End Opposition To New Overhead Power Lines Overnight

As reported earlier, in order to avoid stunting the growth in Europe’s largest economy after its decision to shut down nuclear power forever, Germany must now carry out a massive expansion of it’s electricity-delivery network.

The overhead power lines which will be necessary to connect new offshore wind farms in the north to the factory-rich south and to allow the high-volume energy transfer from French nuclear reactors to cover the shortfall as Germany phases out its own reactors (they only provide a mere 23 percent of the country’s current energy demand) are, however, “unsightly and yucky,” as all Germans know. And they will also probably cause cancer, too (the next DANGER, but that will be another story later, guaranteed).

Fortunately for the German nation, it’s altruistic, selfless citizens have spontaneously decided to sacrifice their own petty personal concerns and grievences in regard to these power lines and win one for the collective common good by immediately ending all opposition to the construction of said yucky power lines and promising to never ever bitch or moan about them ever again, honest.

And if you believe that you can build your overhead power line on some prime Florida swamp land I’ve got for sale for you right here.

A grid upgrade is essential, and Germans must end their opposition to new power lines overhead, energy economics professor Christoph Weber said.

More Green Shirt Activity

See? I told ya.

Greenpeace activists climbed on top of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate yesterday to demand a speedy end to the use of atomic energy (by 2015).

I guess 2022 just ain’t speedy enough.

Every day of Green terror is one day too many (my translation).”

PS: The best part about the article was the Google ad I saw next to it: “Price check for 900 electicity providers: Compare prices and save money today!”