Digita
The chairman of the so-called economic modes, Christoph Schmidt, called an increase in the commuter allowance "The wrong signal in terms of climate policy". The "Rheinische Post" he said: "The commuter flat rate leads to urban sprawl. It rewards people for voluntarily living very far away from their place of work. From an economic point of view, the commuter allowance would have to be abolished", says Schmidt. "Instead, it is now being increased in order to organize social compensation. That’s the wrong way."
In view of the pressure to act with regard to climate protection, the German nuclear phase-out is also repeatedly called into question. The last nuclear power plant will go offline in 2022, but the phase-out of climate-damaging electricity generation from brown and hard coal should not be completed until 2038 at the latest – environmentalists believe that is too late.
The Potsdam climate researcher Johan Rockström told the German press agency about the speculation that there was nothing to suggest that nuclear energy was the future. Renewable energies are much more competitive. "But given that we are facing a climate emergency, I wouldn’t get out of nuclear power if the alternative is just fossil fuels"said the co-head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. He supports the nuclear phase-out in countries that could switch to hydropower, biomass, wind or solar energy.
Greenpeace spoke of one with a view to German climate policy "wasted year". "Today, Germany is one of the European countries with the lowest climate protection ambitions: half-hearted coal exit plans, continued high subsidies for fuel-guzzling SUVs and an agriculture that continues to rely on factory farming are an expression of a backward-looking policy that does not want to face the challenges of global warming", reported the environmental protection organization.
Berlin (dpa) – From the point of view of the municipalities, cash payments for residents of wind turbines are the wrong way to increase the acceptance of wind power in Germany.
T-Online.de/TV
Nursing home action causes a stir
Macron reports from quarantine with a video message
MPs reckon with sexism in the Bundestag
This building is way more famous than it looks
Instagram star dies after cosmetic surgery
Elephant cow gives birth – reaction of the herd amazes
US Vice President Pence vaccinated against Corona
NASA mission enables a first look inside Mars
These rules apply to your fireworks in the garden
Spahn asks for patience when distributing the vaccine
Strange beer appearance in the US Parliament
Suddenly there is no stopping the minister
Container use due to Corona causes a stir
Towing service has a bad surprise
Winter weather causes chaos on the US east coast
"If you want the energy transition, you have to tolerate certain things, without compensation", said Uwe Brandl, the President of the German Association of Towns and Municipalities, on Friday in Berlin. This included the construction of wind farms and power lines, in other areas also rail traffic, bike paths and roads. "If we start paying to stand still, it will certainly start with the wind turbines and then continue through the roads and other infrastructure measures."
The "Wind citizens’ money" is one of the proposals for a faster expansion of wind power that is being discussed in a federal-state working group. SPD parliamentary deputy Matthias Miersch had voted for "direct financial incentives" pronounced for citizens around wind farms.
Brandl demanded one for Germany "Anti-Nimby Movement" – that stands for "not in my backyard", "not in my back yard", and denotes resistance, for example, to transmitter masts, power lines or wind turbines in your own neighborhood, although you are in principle for grid expansion and green electricity.community service definition essay Politicians should sensitize citizens to the fact that they are part of society and that change only works if everyone is ready to participate. Politicians no longer explain, but tried to serve the people benevolently, he criticized.
Brandl also relies on better explanations in other areas of climate protection policy. Politicians shouldn’t pretend that every burden – for example through a CO2 price – can be offset directly, he said. Either it should generally relieve the burden, or explain burdens better and combine them with binding goals.
Berlin (dpa) – At the beginning of the new decade, Chancellor Angela Merkel called on citizens to be courageous, confident and rethinking. "The 20s can be good years. Let’s surprise ourselves once more with what we can do".
T-Online.de/TV
Nursing home action causes a stir
Macron reports from quarantine with a video message
MPs reckon with sexism in the Bundestag
This building is way more famous than it looks
Instagram star dies after cosmetic surgery
Elephant cow gives birth – reaction of the herd amazes
US Vice President Pence vaccinated against Corona
NASA mission enables a first look inside Mars
These rules apply to your fireworks in the garden
Spahn asks for patience when distributing the vaccine
Strange beer appearance in the US Parliament
Suddenly there is no stopping the minister
Container use due to Corona causes a stir
Towing service has a bad surprise
Winter weather causes chaos on the US east coast
That said the CDU politician in her New Year’s address published on Monday. To do this, Germany must use its strengths and focus on what unites.
Merkel pointed out the challenges of digital progress for the life of all people in all areas. She mentioned the world of work in particular and emphasized that people should continue to have a good and secure job and a reliable pension in old age.
"To do this, more than ever, we need the courage to think in new ways, the strength to leave familiar paths, the willingness to dare to try something new, and the determination to act faster, in the conviction that the unfamiliar can succeed – and must succeed if it does the generation of today’s young people and their descendants should still be able to live well on this earth"said Merkel.
She stressed the need to stop climate change. "The warming of our earth is real. It is threatening. They and the crises arising from global warming are man-made. So we also have to do everything humanly possible to meet this human challenge. That is still possible." The climate protection program just passed by the federal and state governments also carries this conviction.
At 65, she herself will no longer experience all the consequences of climate change that would arise if the politicians did not act, said Merkel. "It is our children and grandchildren who have to live with the consequences of what we do or fail to do today. That is why I use all my energy to ensure that Germany does its part – ecologically, economically, socially – to get climate change under control."
The people in Germany could build on what has always made them strong: "our ideas, our ingenuity, our diligence and persistence, our craftsmen, engineers and specialists, our state and voluntary structures, our way of living together in families and associations, the appreciation for those who, for example, care for other people and with other people work".
The Chancellor called on Europe to raise its voice in the world. Germany will campaign for this in its EU Council Presidency in the coming year, for example through a summit of all member states with China and a meeting with the states of Africa. "Cooperation with Africa is also in our own interest. Because only if people have the chance of a peaceful and safe life will flight and migration decrease."
Merkel thanked those who take on political responsibility in Germany, especially local politicians. "Protecting them – like all people in our country – from hatred, hostility and violence, from racism and anti-Semitism is the task of the state, a task to which the federal government feels particularly committed."
Berlin (dpa) – Anyone who watches a video in HD for ten minutes via the cloud consumes as much electricity as an electric oven that runs for five minutes at 2000 watts on full heating mode.
Last-minute gifts: These are the order deadlines on Amazon Exclusive: Surprising shopping trends on Ebay in 2020 "hello123", "I love you" …: These are the most popular passwords in the German Tips for Protection: Security experts warn against PayPal fraud
A Google search query triggers a power requirement of 0.3 watt hours. With 40,000 search queries worldwide per second, huge sums of money come together. These are just two examples of many from a recent study by the French think tank "The Shift Project" with the thesis that the environmental consequences of the digital economy are constantly underestimated.
In German politics, the figures on the ecological footprint of the supposedly clean digital industry have arrived. At least with the Greens. You are calling for new specifications and concepts against the environmental problems of digitization.
Digital
These discount campaigns on the Internet beckon – but be careful!
Excitement among German customers: fraudsters steal points
Proceedings against Apple for distortion of competition
Is the solution to a drug hidden here?
Blinder sings hit from pop star – singer reacts
Samsung makes an embarrassing glitch
Tips from the security expert: How to protect yourself against spam mail
Aldi attracts mobile phone customers with cheap tariffs
App brings Berlin Wall to life
WhatsApp brings new functionality
Heidi Klum is Germany’s most dangerous Google celebrity
"Fortnite": That’s what the game hype is all about
The cellular network is really that bad
They refer to the high power consumption when streaming videos and the raw material requirements of cell phones and computers. Digitization can help with climate and environmental protection, according to a motion by the Greens in the Bundestag. Without ecological guard rails, however, they could continue or accelerate resource consumption and greenhouse gas emissions and lead to more and more electronic waste, they warn.
In their demands, the Greens refer to figures from the electricity supplier EON. According to this, around 200 billion kilowatt hours of electricity will be consumed worldwide by streaming platforms such as Youtube and Netflix alone, but also by video conferences with Skype and other services. This amount is likely to increase noticeably in the coming years, also because more and more smartphones are being sold and used for streaming. Last year, the streaming platforms would have consumed about as much electricity as all private households in Germany, Italy and Poland combined.
"Digitization urgently needs an ecological regulatory framework, otherwise it will become a climate killer instead of a climate saver", said Dieter Janecek, Green expert for digital economy, the dpa. The many possible positive effects would only be realized "if we consistently put digitization at the service of sustainability".
With the demand to operate the data centers with renewable energies, Janecek and his colleagues are opening doors for streaming platforms. For example, YouTube switched completely to a sustainable energy supply two years ago.
Apple and Microsoft also received top marks from the environmental protection organization Greenpeace. And even Amazon, years ago scolded by Greenpeace for a high proportion of nuclear and coal-fired electricity, has now converted more than half of the data centers to renewable energy in its AWS cloud service.
In contrast, Asian cloud services such as Alibaba, Baidu or Tencent, which mainly get their electricity from coal-fired power plants, have so far shown less consideration for the environment and the climate. But these services still play a subordinate role in this country.
The Greens do not focus solely on the supply of green electricity, but are also interested in the question of what ultimately happens to the energy. The computers in the data centers produce heat that until now has often been discharged into the environment without being used. In the Bundestag motion, the parliamentary group advocates using the waste heat for efficient water cooling systems – the use of heat should be prescribed for new facilities.
The Greens also see a need for action when it comes to end devices: raw materials from electrical devices must increasingly be recovered and reused. At the EU level, the Greens want binding standards for "Energy efficiency, resource savings, recyclability and repairability of IT equipment".
Other requirements do not only affect the company’s environmental policy, but also the behavior of users. For many YouTube users, the streaming service is a kind of radio that plays all day long because the service’s autoplay function ensures that one music video is started after the other. The Greens want new efficiency standards so that, for example, videos are not played automatically in the standard settings. In addition, users should be able to choose to only hear the sound. Here, users can also do a lot without government regulation. The autoplay mode of Youtube can be turned off.
Geneva / New York (dpa) – Last year was the second warmest worldwide since records began. This was reported by the World Weather Organization (WMO) in Geneva.
Space station: air leak: cosmonauts struggle with problems on the ISS space station loses air: air leaks: cosmonauts struggle with problems on the ISS Arianespace project: satellites brought into space for fast Internet Cause of crash found: Arianespace wants Vega rocket again after crash start unpleasant but harmless ?: The side effects of the corona vaccination
The evaluation of temperature data from all over the world confirms information from the European Copernicus Climate Change Service from last week. The US weather organization NOAA also announced that according to their data, 2019 was the second warmest year since records began in 1880.