"Encouraging consumers to ‘buy green’ by making environmentally-friendly goods cheaper might have drawbacks as the much feared ‘rebound effect’ could offset gains by pushing for ever more consumption, environmentalists argue.

Environmentally friendly goods are often overpriced for many consumers – and as the economic crisis continues to bite, many suggest that tax incentives are needed to make green shopping more affordable."

Suckers born every ... You can fool enough people long enough to sell slime as green.

Drive for 'green' consumption a chimera, NGOs warn

Published 28 October 2011

http://www.euractiv.com/sustainability/drive-green-consumption-chimera-ngos-warn-news-508616

UK solar subsdies to be cut by more than half

Haven't financing costs also declined? So what if the payback period will now be 18 years? What else would you do with your money? Keep it in the bank? :-)

N

Solar subsidies to be cut by more than half

Published 28 October 2011

http://www.euractiv.com/specialreport-solarpower/chinese-solar-subsidy-storm-heads-europe-news-508585?utm_source=EurActiv+Newsletter&utm_campaign=9861f0ac5e-my_google_analytics_key&utm_medium=email

... The cut will almost double the payback period for householders, the document revealed, meaning someone installing £10-12,000 solar panels will only be in credit after 18 years rather than the current 10. The rate will be reduced from 43.3p per kilowatt hour of solar electricity to just 21p, the document revealed, cutting returns from around 7% to 4%.

Reuters: German solar subsidies to fade 15 pct from 2012

An employment crisis of the rich or the poor?

Solar in Germany required less subsidy because the generation alternatives were relatively costlier and the retail tariffs relatively higher than, say, in China.

I think it's worth examining the comparative advantage - if China can produce GHG reductions for the ETS cheaper than Germany (relative to, say, some financial derivatives or loan products to PIGS), China should export GHG reductions to Germany and Germany should export loan products to China.

I wonder if that's what's happening any way! :-)
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German solar subsidies to fade 15 pct from 2012

http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5E7LR3J020111027

FRANKFURT Oct 27 (Reuters) - Germany's solar feed-in tariffs, subsidies the industry needs to be competitive, will fall 15 percent from 2012.

..

Bonn-based Bundesnetzagentur said solar installations in the 12 months to September 2011 -- the reference period determining the size of the cut -- reached about 5,200 megawatts (MW), down from 7,800 MW in the year-earlier period.

For cuts of 15 percent, installations during the 12-month period needed to be greater than 4,500 MW, according to the German renewable act EEG. Latest available statistics had suggested a cut of at least 12 percent.

Germany is the world's largest solar market by installations and therefore a major sales market of sector bellwethers such as U.S.-based First Solar , China's Suntech , Norway's Renewable Energy Corp and Germany's SMA Solar .

FT: UN says high fertility impedes growth

If women were freed from bearing and caring, could that put downward pressure on wages?

Mary Robinson says, "“The Horn of Africa has had the eight hottest years in succession ever. We are going to have to continue to think about drought and famine. We need to cut through rightwing theology and get back to the basics. We can and should address Africa’s fertility by educating women and improving healthcare.”

Yes, that would also mean putting solar mega projects aside, and using all "climate funds" for health and education.

High fertility impedes growth, says UN - FT.com

www.ft.com

Continued high fertility in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia is impeding economic development and perpetuating poverty, the UN Population Fund has warned. With an estimated 215m women seeking but unable to gain access to family planning each

Water.org: Killing without guns

"The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns."

"In just one day, more than 200 million hours of women’s time is consumed for the most basic of human needs — collecting water for domestic use. This lost productivity is greater than the combined number of hours worked in a week by employees at WalMart, United Parcel Service, McDonald’s, IBM, Target, and Kroger.. "

And with zero wage bill, marginal benefits cost. Ultimately the poor slave for us -- low wages and zero-price fuel/water mean cheap products in WalMart, McDonald's, Target, and Kroger..

Fight inflation. Keep poor people poor, and their women poorer.

Water.org » Water Facts

water.org

Today’s water crisis is not an issue of scarcity, but of access. More people in the world own cell phones than have access to a toilet. And as cities and slums grow at increasing rates, the situation worsens. Every day, lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills thousands,

..

Today’s water crisis is not an issue of scarcity, but of access. More people in the world own cell phones than have access to a toilet. And as cities and slums grow at increasing rates, the situation worsens. Every day, lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills thousands, leaving others with reduced quality of life.

• 884 million people lack access to safe water supplies; approximately one in eight people.
• 3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease.
• The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.
• People living in the slums often pay 5-10 times more per liter of water than wealthy people living in the same city.
• An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than a typical person in a developing country slum uses in a whole day.

Sanitation

• Only 62% of the world’s population has access to improved sanitation – defined as a sanitation facility that ensures hygienic separation of human excreta from human contact.
  
• Lack of sanitation is the world’s biggest cause of infection.
• 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation, including 1.2 billion people who have no facilities at all.
• Of the 60 million people added to the world’s towns and cities every year, most occupy impoverished slums and shanty-towns with no sanitation facilities.

WorldHunger.Org: 2011 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics

".. 925 million hungry people in 2010 "

Animals to be fed to the rich were fed well enough to get a good price. And nicely maintained in the cold chain. The poor can't even get cold chain for their drugs and vaccines.

Oh, well. Poor people have to go low-carbon (carbohydrates, proteins) too .

2011 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics

www.worldhunger.org

No one really knows how many people are malnourished. The statistic most frequently cited is that of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which measures 'undernutrition'. The most recent estimate, released in October 2010 by FAO, says that 925 mi...

UN: Wasting 1.8 billion (and counting)

When I was born, world under-15 population was a little less than a billion, 75% of it in the 'less developed regions' (UN definition). By 2000, world under-15 population had nearly doubled to about 1.8 b people, with about 88% in the less developed regions. This will continue to be the case for the rest of the century - about 1.6 billion youngsters in the less developed regions throughout.

An av ...erage of 200 million children per year from 2000 to 2020, 2030, 2040, 2050 in less developed countries EXCLUDING China. The poorer and more remote, less 'connected', poorly 'serviced', people have higher fertility, and even their survival rates improve throughout all age groups. They account for about a half of the total new children on average, even as infrastructure services improve.

That is, some 100 million children a year, or three billion citizens of humanity over the next thirty years will not have the "minimum conditions" - apart from shelter and food security - to lead healthy, productive, peacefully "engaged" lives.

(Yes, I happen to believe that a healthy, productive, voluntarily engaged populace is the ONLY objective of public policy. The means and scale are 'special interests'.)

A couple of billion people wasted. Four billion more in the rest of my lifetime (should I live that long). (Apart from the newborns, the rest of the population without basic infrastructure is another billion or more. And the 55+ population is also increasing. I am talking about developing countries excluding China.)

The poor don't tax the earth's resources. It's our neglect of the poor that wastes them - and the earth's resources.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/26/un-economic-benefit-young-people

www.guardian.co.uk

UN: World will miss economic benefit of 1.8 billion young people

Population report says lack of education, infrastructure and jobs will mean a generation's potential will be wasted.

"The world is in danger of missing a golden opportunity for development and economic growth, a "demographic dividend", as the largest cohort of young people ever known see their most economically productive years wasted, a major UN population report warned on Wednesday.