"Giving up on pesticides would " affect yields""

In the article " Giving up on pesticides would "affect yields"" that I found on swissinfo.ch, it describes how Switzerland is having problems with biodiversity and how they are trying to regulate pesticides to help with this problem. There was a german study about how pesticides affect biodiversity. The Swiss did not want to completely eliminate the use of pesticides though due to the fact that the amount of crop would be less due to other thing like fungus and disease.

The United States is, I believe having the same basic issue. We are starting to go natural and organic as well as trying to reduce a lot of the harmful things that we have got caught up in.

I do agree with the Swiss in that they should control or regulate pesticide use but not completely so as not to completely harm their crop production. However, I think that they should try to find ways to surpass the natural problems that harm the crops by using natural methods. I mean like use spiders to eat insect pests instead of using insecticides.

I read the article "Recession fails to dent Swiss innovation drive" through the swiss info ch. It talks about how the Swiss are on their way to leading in research. Swiss companies have increased the amount of money that they have spent on research. They also have increased the amount of foreign companies that do research there.

The article does mention how the U.S is in the top five or ten for research but they are falling behind Switzerland. I don't think that the U.S. is very good at research because of medical mishaps.

Swiss seek to improve biodiversity reputation

The article "Swiss seek to improve biodiversity reputation" from the swissinfo.ch websitedescribes how the OECD described the Swiss having lost the most biodiversity than any other European country. Although, the essay describes how biodiversity has started to stabilize in the past 15 years. The Swiss want to act on trying to fix the comment of the decline in biodiversity by getting everybody in Switzerland to know and talk about biodiversity. The Swiss government wants to make sure that people know how important biodiversity is to everybody. Also, the Swiss have a combine of 150 species that are extinct or are on the endangered species list.

I think this is good that they are trying to make their people more aware, but I don't remember too much about reestablishing biodiversity as part of the initiative. I like the fact that they are trying to spread the word of biodiversity, but they have lost so much of that diversity that it will be a struggle to regain it. Plus the fact that I thik you would have to reverse the business part of the economy and try to revert some of it back to the natural environments.

Solar energy

The article that I read was "Subsidies for German solar industry to shrink more quickly than intended," can be found at http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5124204,00.html. The article describes how the Germans taxpayers are paying 3 percent of the subsidies for the solar energy industry. A consumer advocate group is trying to reduce that amount again, although some consumers would be okay with paying higher subsidies in order to promote solar energy. The article states as well that half of the solar panels that are made are installed on German houses.

I personally like the fact that Germans seem to be proactive on trying to go green by using a natural source for energy. I can actually swing to either side of the argument of whether to keep the subsidies steady or to cut them. I would like to see the subsidies go down for the consumer so that they could have more money to spend elsewhere. The business of solar energy is said to have going up quite rapidly in Germany, according to the article, so I don't think that it would be a great deal if the subsidies decreased. On the other hand, is the solar business large enough that if the subsidies were completely eliminated that the solar companies could continue to make a profit without a problem.

First Blog

This blog is for describing articles that pertain to Germany that we will pick out and read, as well as summarize. I am actually not sure what kind of articles I would like to read for this class. I am hoping to learn about what kinds of things go on in Germany and how the people react to everyday events.