Environmental policies produces more inequality than neoliberal ones, says Malte Lehming in the Wall Street Journal. He works for Der Tagesspiegel, which has published the provocative German original (HT: Ava). He acknowledges German leadership in the green industry:

In 15 years, according to a government-sponsored study, green technology will overtake the automobile industry as Germany's core industry. A multi-billion-dollar market has developed, and Germany is the leader in many emerging branches, with a worldwide market share in green technology of around 16%. Some 1.5 million Germans already work in the green industry.

This progress, however, comes at the expense of the working classes:

The Greens like to portray themselves as fighting against the excesses of capitalism. Now it's clear that the ecological-industrial complex increases inequality more than neo-liberal policies ever could.

Meanwhile a very different situation in the United States, home of the so-called "military industrial complex." The midterm elections are bad for America's green industry and the future of the US economy in general, writes Carnegie Fellow John Judis in The New Republic. His article on the Lost Generation is among the most negative assessments of the Republican gains at Congress:

America's challenge over the next decade will be to develop new industries that can produce goods and services that can be sold on the world market. The United States has a head start in biotechnology and computer technology, but as the Obama administration recognized, much of the new demand will focus on the development of renewable energy and green technology. As the Chinese, Japanese, and Europeans understand, these kinds of industries require government coordination and subsidies. But the new generation of Republicans rejects this kind of industrial policy. They even oppose Obama's obviously successful auto bailout.

Instead, when America finally recovers, it is likely to re-create the older economic structure that got the country in trouble in the first place: dependence on foreign oil to run cars; a bloated and unstable financial sector that primarily feeds upon itself and upon a credit-hungry public; boarded-up factories; and huge and growing trade deficits with Asia. These continuing trade deficits, combined with budget deficits, will finally reduce confidence in the dollar to the point where it ceases to be a viable international currency.

Strong stuff! Both articles!. Germans are screwed in the short run, Americans in the medium run? And in the long run we are all dead. Speaking of which: Is Obama a Keynesian?

From the Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital blog:

Europe's biofuel industry has long complained about U.S. subsidies. Friday, it took its case to the European Union but the chances of winning a victory look slim. EU biodiesel producers have been simmering about the $1 per gallon tax credit American biodiesel producers get. EU producers say that distorts the market and, in the words of the biodiesel trade group, created a severe injury to the EU biodiesel industry.

The Guardian is a bit more optimistic regarding the European Biodiesel Board's case.

The New York Times Blog The Lede (HT: David) describes a press release from Germany's Environment Minister Gabriel (Social Democrats) as "creative":

In a statement released today, Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel described Mr. Bush's speech on Wednesday as disappointing. But the statements harshest words were put in the title of Mr. Gabriel's critique, according to Reuters: "Gabriel Criticizes Bush's Neanderthal Speech. Losership, Not Leadership"

Comparing any unpopular leader to an ancestor of Man is hardly original, though far more expected from the likes of Kim Jong Il of North Korea rather than a government with warm ties to the U.S. Mr. Gabriel's kicker, however, seemed in a league of its own. Losership, Not Leadership? That's a new one, according to Google.

UPDATE: Mr. Gabriel was criticized in March for polluting the atmosphere. He used a government plane to fly back from the Spanish holiday island of Mallorca for a cabinet meeting in Berlin, writes Spiegel International (HT: Bashy).

International Herald Tribune:

Cars produced by German manufacturers like Daimler and Volkswagen are getting dirtier even as those from French and Italian manufacturers like Peugeot and Fiat are getting cleaner. Of the major car producing countries in Europe, emissions of carbon dioxide from new cars sold by German automakers increased 0.6 percent in 2006, even as French and Italian car makers cut their emissions by an average 1.6 percent, according to the study published by Transport & Environment, a campaign group for sustainable transport based in Brussels. German carmakers "seem to be intent on building ever heavier, larger and more gas-guzzling cars that simply don't belong in the 21st century," said Jos Dings, a director of T&E.

Left-wing and right-wing Americans reduce Europe to Amsterdam, Brussels and the Hague and misunderstand Europe, writes Patrick J. Deneen, associate professor of government at Georgetown University:

In America, it is our liberals who praise the liberties of Europe while overlooking the conservative impulse of its self-restraint. Meanwhile, our conservatives condemn the statism of Europe without understanding that efforts to conserve - to be conservative - require the active support and laws of government in order to combat the tendencies of markets to produce waste and undermine thrift. Americans of both the left and right have lost the ability to perceive a form of liberty that is achieved through restraint.

America's culture warriors ignore the small towns and villages, which Prof. Deneen visited in southern Germany, central Switzerland and western Austria:

The Europeans I have seen are light years ahead of us in energy conservation and will weather the storm of rising energy costs better than we in America. Indeed, the combination of local economies, nearby productive farmland outside every town, viable public transportation and widespread use of alternative energies points to a culture that has never abandoned sustainable communities in the way that America willfully and woefully has done over the past 50 years.

You can also get some sense of why there is resentment toward America even here in a nation that generally has positive regard toward the U.S. Europeans pay higher prices for everything in an effort to use less and to create less waste in order to leave a sustainable world for their children, and whatever "give" there is in the worldwide production of resources is a kind of unintended sacrificial gift that many Europeans are making so that America can continue its energy gluttony.