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" My favorite show on National Public Radio is Marketplace. It&amp;#039;s smart, it&amp;#039;s funny, and it&amp;#039;s surprisingly eclectic for a show on money and business. Last night, they did a segment on Germany&amp;#039;s booming solar industry. That&amp;#039;s right, Germany. Where BMW&amp;#039;s are made. Where you can chew the beer. Where it rains a whole heck of a lot. In fact, turns out Germany is the largest solar market in the world (Japan is second; California is third); in 2006, it was worth five billion bucks. That&amp;#039;s not chump change. Coming on the heels of Tom Friedman&amp;#039;s piece in this week&amp;#039;s NY Sunday Time&amp;#039;s Magazine, it&amp;#039;s possible to see the first shoots of what I call &amp;quot;green optimism&amp;quot;; that is, the notion that we can have our cake and eat it, too. These reports suggest that perhaps we really can reduce our carbon output AND grow the economy. Of course, a few bright green examples of economic growth holding hands with environmentally friendly practices does not a green economy make (and never mind that Mr Friedman seems to be utterly clueless regarding the harsh realities of our energy future). But it is at least a healthy rebuke to the notion that economic prosperity and ever-increasing fossil fuel consumption are inextricably linked. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a1586/4215758/>