Environmental Friendliness in Germany

The awareness of enviornmental issues is pretty high in Germany. Compared to most developed countries the environmental movement is strong here. Some of the things to notice immediately are:

• Separation of waste into 3 categories: Bio, recyclable and others
• Extra charge for usage of plastic bags in supermarkets and encouraging people to reuse
• High cost of petrol/diesel
• Bicycle friendly streets
• Excellent public transport system
• Various environmental activities like protecting forests, plantations, etc. Opposition to 3rd runway in Munich is a significant movement
• Existence of Bio-products

When one travels through Germany, it is impressive to see that there is almost no visible air pollution and most cities are extremely green.

Does this mean Germany is environmentally friendly? Sadly, the answer is no when one observes the life-style and the society closely. Among the developed nations, probably, Germany might be better off w.r.t. environmental awareness. However when it comes to practice the country is way behind. Here are some of the reasons:

Air pollution: It is true that visible air pollution is almost nil in Germany. This is not due to any technological breakthrough. It has happened mainly by shifting out all the polluting industries to the so-called third world countries and importing finished goods.

Greenery: Germany is a pretty green country through the year except during winter. However much of this is artificially maintained. In fact home and garden plants looks to be a billion Euro industry here. There is very little support available for indigenous growth and maintenance of plants and trees. Much of the emphasis is on the commercial aspect of buying and selling exotic plants.

Animals: It is shocking to see absence of animals in all the greenery visible in Germany. Cold weather is probably a partial reason for seeing less animals here compared to tropical regions. However a bigger reason is the attitude of people in general towards animals. Animals, unlike plants, like to be free. However people in general want animals to be under their control. This desire for control has lead to elimination of most of the carnivores. That leaves only herbivores. Due to absence of their respective predators, the herbivores have the ability to rapidly increase in numbers and cause wide spread destruction of vegetation. This requires again human and technological effort to keep this under-check!

Why don't people let the respective predators survive? Animals in general flourish best when they are least disturbed. Which means gardens, forests, mountains, lakes and rivers need to have less disturbance from humans to enable the animals to thrive. In cases where animals are closer to human dwellings they require compassion and an attitude of "live and let live" principle. In an industrialized society human interference with nature is strongest and absence of compassion is stark. This has lead to wiping out many of the animal species here.

Recycling: Recycling of products and packaging material is almost a myth. It is true that a small percentage of these materials do get recycled. However majority of the materials are either buried in some remote place or exported to some "poor" country, from where no one wants to hear any more news of the same.

Supermarkets and Superstores: Almost all end user purchases happen in supermarkets and super stores. It is interesting to see that most products sold in germany will just have a German address and may or may not contain the information on the country of origin. Majority of these products would have travelled thousands of kilometers before reaching the supermarket shelves. How on earth can a supermarket be environmentally friendly?

Bio-products: Bio products are a niche. It is possible that these products are grown and produced in the most enviornmentally friendly ways. However as long as they are priced higher they cannot replace the non-bio, environmentally harmful products!

Public transportation: Existence of good publich transportation is a big thing here. However as long as they are more expensive than travelling by car most people would prefer cars. As long as the government promotes car industry and as long as the car industry pumps millions of Euro in promotion of the same how can the lure of the car decrease. Public transportation will remain a nice-to-have back-up solution for the majority of the population.

In summary some of the key things required to put Germany on the path of enviornmentally friendly nations are:

• Introduce enviornment related topics early on in the schools
• Spread awareness on the dangers of widespread usage of technology
• Promote business models and lifestyles that cause less burden to the environment
• Protect natural habitats from human activities
• Encourage human activities which are in harmony with Nature
• Ban imports of any item from anywhere in the world that is produced or hunted in an unsustainable manner
• Export and import Knowledge and not machinery and industries:
• Stop pumping money into the so-called third-world countries in the form of "Aid" and instead spread education on enviornment and encourage local sustainable life-styles
• Make the reports on environmental damages caused by modern machinery and industry easily available to any country receiving the German technology.

Let the world remember Germany for its Environmental leadership! Let Germany become synonymous with Peace and Non-violence in the broadest sense.