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George Osbourne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, the British Minister responsible for all economic and financial matters, has announced the UK's financial plans that won't see any immediate cuts to solar feed-in-tariffs. Earlier in the year the newly elected coalition government indicated significant cuts would likely be made to funding allocated to green initiatives including solar feed in tariffs, work that had been carefully laid out by the U.K.'s Department of Energy and Climate Change. Cuts were being considered in light of global economic problems.

Feed in tariffs are short term (10 to 25 year financial incentives typically) offered by governments to assist the market introduction and practical adoption of socially and environmentally beneficial energy technologies like solar, wind, micro-hydro, or geo-thermal energy for example.

The U.K.'s decision to continue to provide solar feed in tariffs demonstrates that the British have very carefully considered all variables in the face of serious financial considerations, and yet faced with many pressing economic issues, which many countries are faced with, the UK recognizes the importance of how energy and the environment are connected, and that the future of energy production is paramount to the well-being of our generation and future generations. This is no small decision but one that demonstrates the type of leadership required as we face a myriad of global issues, not the least of which is energy production.

Energy, which has operated largely in the domain of capital gain, and how energy is supplied, are not being discussed with scope in mainstream media in North America however. The average North American who looks to the available media moguls is provided with little comprehensive understanding of where the global energy industry is at, the real energy crisis, or why national and local energy management change and reformation are required. Energy capitalists are presently still busy sucking the last bit of profit from a dying fossil fuel industry.

President Obama is willing to make the changes the rest of the world sees as evident, but is the United States ready, and does the U.S. understand what Obama is trying to do with renewable energy? In seeing the smear campaigns major magazines(I won't bother to name them) in the U.S. have been busy constructing against Obama, it's clear to me that the U.S. seems clearly off the page with renewable energy and other vital global issues. RollingStone Magazine's Tim Dickinson seems to have a more sober and somewhat 'mud slinging free' outlook, which can be read in his article covering interviews with Obama in the October issue of RollingStone.

Countries in Europe, like Germany and Denmark for example, had a clear response to the oil energy crisis that took place in the 1970's by recognizing that oil was not forever. Isn't that a good realization? We have them to thank for their leadership and example that renewable energy works and is a fantastic solution, a fact that the oil powers that be still want to fight. So will the U.S. be left behind as the world moves forward to a new energy future? We'll see what America thinks in November.

For those interested in reading the important announcement in support of solar feed in tariffs in the UK, see George Osbourne's full report here.