Die SPD will die drastische Kürzung der Solarförderung unbedingt verhindern.—Die Einspeisevergütungen werden vor allem über die Stromrechnung jedem privaten Stromkunden in Rechnung gestellt. Die Mehrheit sind Mieter. Da passiert gerade eine große Umverteilung von Arm zu Reich.

Aus Protest gegen stark überhöhte Hotelpreise hat das EU-Parlament die geplante Reise einer elfköpfigen Delegation zum UN-Umweltgipfel im brasilianischen Rio de Janeiro abgesagt. Angesichts der Finanzprobleme in Europa seien die explodierenden Kosten für die Teilnahme an dem Gipfel nicht mehr zu rechtfertigen, sagte der Vorsitzende des Umweltausschusses im Europaparlament, Matthias Groote (SPD), in Brüssel.

Geht es nach der CDU-Fraktion in der Gemeinde Oyten, sollen Klimaschutzmaßnahmen auch in den beiden kirchlichen und vier kommunalen Kindertagesstätten schon bald ein Thema werden. Mit ener:kita werde bereits im Vorschulalter der Grundstein für einen verantwortungsvollen Umgang mit den Ressourcen gelegt, erläutert Energiekonsens den Projektansatz. Ziel dabei sei es, Anregung und Motivation zur langfristigen Verhaltensänderung bis in den gesellschaftlichen Alltag hinein zu fördern. 

We are told that austerity in Europe has failed. The elections in France and Greece, for instance, are supposedly evidence of people’s opposition to severe cuts in spending. However, the growing anti-austerity backlash in Europe ignores one fundamental point: If there is austerity in Europe, in most cases it hasn’t taken the form of massive spending cuts. Following years of large spending expansion, Spain, the United Kingdom, France, and Greece—countries widely cited for adopting austerity measures—haven’t significantly reduced spending since “austerity” supposedly started in 2008.
Full data here

The Europeans have had the best governments money can buy. Their elected leaders have provided them with all sorts of wonderful social welfare benefits. Many Europeans are employed by their governments to provide those benefits to their needy fellow citizens. Those who cannot find a job, or are too depressed to look for one, are provided with extremely generous unemployment benefits. Retirement benefits are great, and early retirement is the norm. Life has been very good in Europe.

Of course, that all costs lots of money. That’s why income tax rates are so high in Europe. On top of those rates, Europeans pay significant value-added taxes on the goods and services they buy. Yet there has been an ever-widening gap between government spending and revenues. That’s partly because Europeans have responded to their exorbitant tax rates with widespread tax avoidance.

The spending of European governments has …

If you’re sick of the sad, hopeless stories coming out of Africa, here’s one that made my year. New statistics show that the rate of child death across sub-Saharan Africa is not just in decline—but that decline has massively accelerated, just in the last few years. From the middle to the end of the last decade, rates of child mortality across the continent plummeted much faster than they ever had before… They are doing this across hundreds of millions of people, across a vast landscape of hundreds of thousands of villages and cities. The paper’s authors investigate the reasons for the decline in Kenya alone, and conclude that in Kenya it results from a combination of broad public health efforts and the recent robust economic growth across the region.

Aufgepasst, Europas linke und rechte Planwirtschaftler. Ihr werdet bald abgehängt von einem neo-liberalen Afrika: A week hardly goes-by without one or more international investors announcingmajor investment interests in Nairobi, or other African capital cities. On a macroeconomic level, the new Africa momentum has also been evident. Africa has weathered both the global financial crisis, and the turbulence in the Euro zone. According to World Bank’s latest economic outlook, Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to grow above 5 percent in 2012 and 2013. This would be higher than the average of developing countries (excluding China), and substantially, above growth in high-income countries. This means that at some point in this decade, Africa could grow above the levels of Asia. 

Arctic sea ice has persistently dwindled over the last three decades, yet sea ice set record highs in waters around Alaska this past winter. Ice in the Bering Sea not only covered more area than usual, it also stuck around longer, bucking the downward trend in sea ice cover observed since 1979, when satellite records for the region began. Sea ice cover in the Bering Sea was well above normal for much of the season, and reached a record-high extent in March 2012.