Urban numbers

The proportion of renewable energies in the electricity mix of Germany reached the record level of 25.8% in 2014. An increase of 1.7% from 2013, when renewable energy accounted for 24.1%. But brown coal and stone coal together remain at the first place as source of electricity, with 43.6%. (En Allemagne, les énergies renouvelables deviennent première source d’éléctricité; La Tribune, December 30th, 2016)

A study published in July 2016 in the magazine Science concluded that on 58% of the world’s land surface, where 71.4% of the human population live, land use and related pressures have already reduced local biodiversity intactness beyond its estimated planetary boundary / safe limits. A reduction in biodiversity intactness that questions the ability of these ecosystems to meet human needs and where human intervention might have to replace the services provided by nature, like pollination, water purification, oxygen production … (Science, July 15th, 2016)

The Kaufingerstraße in Munich, the central shopping street of the city, had been passed by about 17653 people per hour on April 16th 2016 between 12h an 14h. This count undertaken by the agency Engel und Völkers Commercial, established it as Germanys most frequented shopping street. (Das sind die Top-Einkaufsmeilen Deutschlands; Handelsblatt, Mai 17, 2016)

In France pesticides are used in increasingly massive doses in the countryside, that reveal the statistics that the Ministry of Agriculture has made public on Tuesday, March 8, 2016. They draw an average upward trend of 5.8% in use of pesticides between 2011 and 2014. The number of treatments with pesticides is of the order of 2.7 on cauliflower, 8.5 on cherries, 10 on melons, 12 on tomatoes, 19 on viticulture and 35 on apples. (Le Monde, March 9th, 2016)

In 2014, sales of electric bicycles reached 480,000 units in Germany, which corresponds to an increase of 17% compared to 410,000 units sold in 2013, according to the German Federation of motorbikes (ZIV). More than 2.1 million e-bikes are already circulating on German roads. (Bicycle sales boom; Les Echos, June 17, 2015)

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