Ben Goossen, 11/12/2013
A German wind turbine. (Flickr/epSos .de)
While the United States’ congressional machinery was busy shoveling sugar into its own gas tank last month, politicians in Germany pressed forward on their ambitious drive for sustainability. Boosted by a fresh mandate in the September elections, German leaders pressed on with their country’s “Energy Transformation,” a campaign designed to ignite a renewables revolution and slash greenhouse gases 80 percent by 2050. As Germany begins powering down its coal plants and nuclear reactors one by one, solar stations and windmills are appearing around the country by the tens of thousands.
U.S. climate activists have been quick to valorize Germany’s recent restructuring. Bill McKibben of 350.org has called Germany the greenest industrial nation on earth. “Munich is north of Montreal!” he likes to point out, emphasizing that the cold and cloudy capital of kraut is already capable of generating half of its electricity from solar power — and that the rest of the world’s sunnier, windier and more seismically active countries no longer have an excuse not to follow suit.
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