Another OW gem:

Harry Lime: Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.

Andrew, it pains me to point this out but I think that the French might make claim to greenest, at least in terms of CO2 per GDP, on account of nuclear power. But the Obama in this race is the Danes, with all that wind power coming online. Keep us posted.

But geopolitics plays a large role. When your traditional energy option is buying gas and oil from Putin's Russia, you naturally look for some diversification. So green they are.

They are not a people of middle settings.

If they are going to do something, be it the manufacture of beer, the engineering of a car, the elimination of a race of people, or the conversion to green technologies, they are unlikely to give half measure and wishy washy discussions of the merits of the idea.

It is something one is well to remember that Germany prior to the Nazis had a long history of tolerance, humanitarianism and multiculturalism. One reason so many Jews were in Germany for example was that it was one of the few places in Europe where they were allowed to live and work peacefully with the rest of the community.

The rest of the world had been racist for centuries, but in less than two decades after the Germans decided try racism on a national basis, the world recoiled at the face of true hatred. One could likely say that without the vision of the future that the Nazis offered the world would not have embraced the notions of humanity and civil rights that came to fruition after WWII.

Now the Germans have decided to turn their strange societal might towards the green techonologies. If I were Saudi Arabia, I'd be very very worried. We are really only a few genetically engineered peanuts away from a biodeisle economy, and Solar becomes cheaper and more efficient everyday. All it takes is for a nation to focus its resources on the outcome and reap the rewards. If the Germans are the ones to make that choice, I'd say it's a good bet they will have the follow through as well.

Germany was the prototype of the new political idealism in Europe in the 30's. Fascism was fashionable. Poets like Ezra Pound, sang their praises. Is Green a potentially violent, world reshaping, force of creative political destruction. Is it possible that what happens at the margins, (recycling, composting, refusal of the corporate consumer mass produced lifestyle) tends to influence the political reality which evolves in the center?

Is the Green Party in America more powerful than anyone thinks? (Gay Marriage, just possibly the touchstone of campaign 2008)

Why is it that the Greens and Germans are running along these parallel tracks? Why is it that the more Fascist proposals from the Bush administration, are often the least criticized? (Example bringing the Federal Reserve into the government, by giving it broad new powers, which in turn are really new government powers).

Good article Andrew, run with it.

I lived in Munich for 6 years until last year, and can say definitively that in Germany, Green is Routine.

Household recycling is mandatory. You can be fined if the garbage people find recyclables in your trash. The city of Munich even collects compostable material in special bins (although you're not fined if you put orange peels in your trash.) I found that after separating out the recyclables and compostables, hardly anything was actually considered "trash."

The City of Munich advertises the healthful content of the water supply to encourage residents to drink the tap water rather than buying bottled mineral water. The water tastes good, and since it comes out of the Alps, the mineral content is high (this is considered a positive for drinking, but it's not great for bathing or laundry, I must say.) You can buy special carbonating machines for home use, if you like your water fizzy. The empty carbon canisters are exchanged at the store for a fresh one when they run out, and the canisters are re-filled.

All stores who sell beverages in some glass and plastic bottles must have a mechanism for returning bottles and getting a deposit back (whether or not the store actually sold you the particular beverage whose container you're returning.) Beer bottles are returned to the brewery, cleaned out, and re-used, skipping the step of recycling. So are the 20-bottle crates they come in.

Air conditioning is still relatively rare in homes, schools, and offices. Some new buildings are designed to be heat and cooling neutral, except on the hottest and coldest days. (Germany does have a temperate climate.)

Grocery stores have a collection container for dead batteries. If you don't bring your own shopping bags to the grocery store, you will pay 5 cents for each plastic bag you use. I was once (gently) reprimanded by a neighbor for flying off to other European capitals for weekend sight-seeing trips. Leaving a vehicle to idle while parked is illegal. Und so weiter . . .

The public transport in Munich is so good that I didn't own a car for six years, and rarely rented a car or took a taxi anywhere.

It's impressive, really.

After the US Air Force stole "Uber Alles" from them they had to do SOMETHING.

It's a very good movie, and a treat to see Robinson and Welles together. There's a nice clocktower ending as well.

Of course, the real horror of World War II was only hinted at by Loretta Young's performance, but still, a good movie.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

We needed this.

And notice that it didn't hurt German business! But it's too early to become complacent. There is still much to do.

Reinhard Schumann

Bonn Germany