The news in the run-up to Copenhagen are not encouraging. However: how could we give up here? And indeed, the spirit of commitment and engagement at this university slowly grows:
After the last lectures the initiative was taken to found a students group in order to improve energy efficiency at the university. They will hold their first official meeting at Thursday, 26th Nov Nov, at 18:00h, room is still to be announced. Please contact Holger Fischer for further information! I think this sort of initiatives is really what we need, so let's give them all support we can share!
The demonstration at Friday was quite a success; there were at least 500 people. Most of them were youths, the ones who start engaging now and might soon be in positions to take responsibility, so its promising if they know already now what to stand for!
Still, to be informed is important. I try my best here to sum up information for you, hoping that some of you can make use of it. Comments would be highly appreciated! :-)
A really good, very short summery about the state of affairs in pre-Copenhagen negotiations can be found here.
An elaborate investigation on the perception of climate change in the US can be found here.
The topic will be: "Engagement in politics: how can we be heard?"
We will have an Interview with Hannes Rockenbauch, founder of the SÖS (“Stuttgart ecological and social”), member of the municipal council and student. We will talk about his experiences, motivations successes and disappointments in local politics.
As always: there is the chance for discussion, FRESH will provide honest, organic and self-made food, and afterwards you can chillout with a beer served by the ASTA-Kulturgruppe.
A short note on the state of affairs in climate change policy
You can download a handout prepared for the climate change policy lecture here. It summarizes the most important issues and compiles an elaborate list of links for further reading. There is also a short overview on events accompanying the negotiations in Copenhagen provided.
Unfortunately the intended presenter could not come due to schedule difficulties (but he promised to make up for it another time!). Thus, we had to improvise and only had a short summary of the study he worked on. This study will soon be published and available as free download, the link will be posted here. Additionally we had some short report and segments of the news coverage of the subject:
A short description of the alarming situation in the arctic of national geographic
A segment describing the hopes to find oil in the region from CNN
A segment of Russian TV describing the possibility of new shipping routes
An interview with a french professor on the geopolitical implications
You might as well have a look again on the powerpoint-presentation for a summary of the main findings of the study.DOWNLOAD FILE
Very briefly, the main conclusions are:
Forecasting the region’s future involves a high level of uncertainty
Assumptions on the resources under the arctic are almost exclusively based ona single survey
It is not very likely that new shipping routes will be established in the region
If itindeed turns out that oil extraction is feasible in the region, cooperation is more likely then conflict
The discussion afterwards went soon to broader implications and issues. Key points of the expressed arguments are given here as summary together with some suggestions for further reading.
Climate change is still the major issue: multilevel action is needed. Good news are that political awareness has improved. Action on personal level needed as well. FRESH advocates for changes in eating patterns, arguing with the plausibility for daily life and the huge possible impact on agricultural practice.
>>see Worldwatch Report: Mitigating Climate Change Through Food and Land Use
Many things to discuss, many ideas needed! Please have your say, leave a comment or write me an e-mail, let’s exchange!
The first lecture will start directly with an interesting and ambitious subject. As we aim to make the lectures even more fruitfull and interesting, already for the first lecture we invited an external presenter. The subject he will talk about is the geopolitical situation in the arctic region.
The ice shield in the arctic region is melting faster then scientist believed just some years ago. In September 2008, the extent of the summer Arctic ice cap was at a near-record low, only 9 percent greater than the record low in 2007, and 33.6 percent below the average extent of sea ice from 1979 to 2000 (Source). Despite being an alarming sign of proceeding climate change, these developments arouse covetousness. The melting of the ice is making the Northwest Passage, the shipping routes through the northernmost latitudes, more navigable, raising the possibility that the Arctic region will become a prime trade route. In addition, it is believed that the Arctic seabed may contain substantial oil fields which may become accessible if the ice covering them melts. These factors have led to recent international debates as to which nations can claim sovereignty or ownership over the waters of the Arctic (Source).
The presenter is an expert of an international policy advisory institute, who worked on a recent study on the subject. Look forward to an interesting presentation and first hand information!
Unfortunately the TMS is blocked this Tuesday. We will move to the Tropenzentrum instead. Afterwards everyone is invited to join the party of the career center at the TMS.
Please come and be part of a good start of the Green Bug Lectures into the next semester!
As the first decade of the new millennium ends, humanity faces enormous crises. The fight against hunger remains grim reality for more than a billion humans. The financial crisis shakes the industrial nations, and the climate crisis wears on and pronounces that the worst is still to come. The problems of the 21st century are global and complex. It will need drastic efforts to solve them, and approaches that overcome the thinking that led into these crises. Everyone is asked!
Universities should act as the cradle of new ways of thinking. But broad discussions do hardly take place, neither in lectures nor among students. The Green Bug Lectures are setting out to fill this gap.
»Every second Tuesday at the TMS
»Presentations and discussions in relaxed atmosphere
»to develop ideas, to call for action, to inspire engagement
First Subjects this year:
27.10. Opening Session: Geopoltical Situation in the arctic region: the race on new resources. Resources under the melting ice shield: which interests? Which stakeholders? What are the consequences? AT TROPENZENTRUM!
10.11.Copenhagen Climate Conference, Kyoto II: Prepare for action!
What is the state of affairs in the moment? What’s going on in December accompanying the negotiations (events, actions and demonstrations)? How can we participate?
24.11.Engagement in politics: how can we be heard?
Which way to go? Experiences in political work, in the parliament or in NGOs. Presenters (invited): Hannes Rockenbauch (SÖS), Greenpeace/BUND
The lectures start at 7 pm. FRESH serves food! Wind down afterwards with a beer…
The green bug lectures are about going to finish for this semester. We had some nice evenings and interesting discussions. Hopefully we can continue next semester. The lectures are still in their infancy, and my pledge for the next semester is to organize the events longer ahead and to invite some external experts. So what will we have for the coming green bug lecture? There have been busy times for all of us, and I had to deviate from the schedule again. Now I want to make the last green bug lecture your lecture! The idea behind the lectures is to exchange ideas and to talk about latest events and issues. So why not having “green bug lectures in a nutshell”? Have you stumbled over important news in the recent past? Have you heard of an interesting event? Do you engage yourself in an interesting organization? Do you have a good idea for taking action? Let the others now! Say what you want to say in 5-10 minutes and hear what the others think about it! And last but not least: let’s talk about the future green bug lectures: what are your ideas and comments, what can be improved, and about what would you like to hear next semester? If you have something you want to present you can let me know ahead, then we can post an announcement and some information ahead here on the blog. However, spontaneous contributions will be appreciated as well. And I am very happy to announce that F.R.E.S.H. will provide us with some food again. Thanks and two thumbs up! Tuesday, June, 30st, start 19:00h Hope to see some of you there! PS: Noch ein Hinweis für die der deutschen Sprache mächtigen: am Freitag in Tübingen: KLIMAPERSPEKTIVEN – BLICKWINKEL AUF DEN KLIMAWANDEL
I want to thank all of you for your vivid and inspiring participation in the last green bug lectures. Two thumbs up for all of you who already signed in the "seal the deal" campaign!
Unfortunately I do not have the time to present an elaborate summary of the last lecture here. As provisional measure I make the PowerPoint presentation availible, so that you might have a look at the links again or maybe feel reminded at interesting topics you want to investigate further. I hope to provide more interesting material here in future. Of course all contributions are highly welcomed and appreciated. Get informed, get organized, get engaged! ;-)
There is an international umbrella organisation of NGOs concerned about climate change, the climate action network (CAN). They provide a lot of material on their homepage (under „policy and information“). Look for their "ECO" newsletter, short but very well written crtical comments on ongoing negotiations.
Official site of the UFCCC, which is a vast source of information. There is also a webcast of important meetings of the ongoing climate change talks in Bonn.
The german NGO german watch is very active in fighting for climate justice, but they also provide a lot of material.
A very good and critical report on carbon trade can be found here („this publication takes a broad look at several dimensions of carbon trading. It analyses the problems arising from the emerging global carbon market pertaining to the environment, social justice and human rights, and investigates climate mitigation alternatives. It provides a short history of carbon trading and discusses a number of ‘lessons unlearned’. Nine case studies from different parts of the world provide examples of the outcomes.“)
Discussion paper of „Bred for the world“ (a german NGO) on financing climate adaption.
It has been announced for a while and finally the time has come: “The Green Bug Lectures” go Copenhagen.The coming Tuesday we will talk about climate change policy. We gonna try to answer questions like: Where are we after the Kyoto protocol? What to think of “Carbon emission trade” and “clean development mechanism”? What should we demand from Copenhagen? There will also be first hand reports from the climate action day, taking place this weekend during the “Bonn Climate Change Talks - June 2009” (preparatory meetings for the Copenhagen conference in December).
We are back at the TMS this Tuesday. And even better: F.R.E.S.H will serve food. Therefore, look forward to an informative and inspiring evening in good “out-of-lecture-hall” atmosphere!
Thank you all for your contributions after the movie. Unfortunately so far the discussion did not go on after this evening, although certainly further exchange could be fruitful.
I am gonna make a short contribution: for those of you speaking German, it might be worth to check the Wikipedia article about the movie (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwins_Alptraum). The controversy around this movie is well documented with “external links”. If you follow the links to Arte, taz, or “Freundeskreis Bagamoyo” you will find the whole range of criticisms.
I am still sort of undecided. From a “scientific” point of view the movie has certainly distinct weaknesses. On the other hand it is art, and the main massage passed (“look, there is suffering in other parts of the world, and Europe is part of the cause”) holds true never the less.
I want to stress the point Katrin brought in, that education might be the only way out of the misery some people in Africa find them self in. One day later I talked to a friend of mine, who is very much engaged in “informal education” in Germany as well as in Africa. He does not run a highly-professional-mirror finish NGO, but he is very engaged and has interesting ideas. He always looks forward to talk to people and tries to motivate them to launch projects in there home countries:
This Tuesday is the third time we meet. Unfortunately the TMS is blocked today, so we will meet at the Tropenzentrum (H20). This time we will have a movie, presented by the Tropennetzwerk. It is called “darwins nightmare”. “Darwin's Nightmare is a tale about humans between the North and the South, about globalization, and about fish” is how the director describes the film. It is a documentary with drastic pictures about the situation at the Lake Victoria in Tanzania and was nominated for the 2006 oscars as best documentary. However, it caused some controversy, and will certainly give reason to interesting discussions.
A short summary (key points) of the last “green bug lecture” should be provided here. It will neither be complete nor give details. I will try to represent the view expressed during the presentation and only share my opinion in comments afterwards.
Main purpose of presenting a summary is to offer a possibility to pick up some arguments again and to comment. So please: comment!
Presentation by Pavlos Georgiadis (F.R.E.S.H):
-characteristics that food should have brought into the discourse by the slow food movement: good, clean fair
-characteristics that might as well be important: honesty, knowledge diversity, responsibility
-responsible eating is a contribution to save our planet (it can diminish our ecological footprint)
-it is important to see the whole production chain behind the food procession: e.g. although flour might be processed in Germany, the wheat might be imported from India; or soya might be imported to feed German pigs
-Thus, the ingredients for a pizza might all together have travelled over 80.000 km
Consequences related to “unsustainable foodproduction”:
-conditions of animal production
-working conditions/ human right violation (immigration worker on farms/ in green houses)
-loss of biodiversity
-market control of companies
-depletion of water resources
-use of agrochemicals
-use of additives
What to do:
-Merge the consumption of organic AND regional produced food
-Honesty: be informed and claim your right to be informed
-Change academic culture (so far Hohenheim as one of Europe's leading agricultural universities is not setting a good example)
-Reform land use based on scientific knowledge and local wisdom
-Rediscover eating as pleasure for all senses
-See what F.R.E.S.H is doing
“Clusters” of discussion.
-Dumping of food into 3rd world countries, food sovereignty, fair trade
-Market power of companies, market power of consumers, non-cooperation
-Social implications: can people afford to buy slow/organic food? Valuation of food
-Political implications: isn’t a complete change in the economical/ political system a prerequisite for fair food production and consumption?
The Kulturgruppe of Asta and FRESH are inviting you to the second part of the 'Green-Bug Lectures' series with the title
Where was your Food last night? Very often, in our modern culture, we are disconnected from the production processes that bring goods of mass consumption to our door. If one is asked, where does the milk, the bananas, the apples that he/she eats come from, the answer is usually simply 'from the super-marker'. From how many countries do the products that fill our basket come? How many kilometers does our food have to travel between the field and our plate? What are the consequences to the environment, society and economy? How can we as agriculturalists of the future pass the message of sustainable eating to the simple citizen in the street?
presented by Pavlos Georgiadis (FRESH). On Tuesday, May 12 at 19:00 at the Tropenzentrum.
The foundations of human history lie in the way in which ecosystems work. Human development depends to very high degree on the ability of attaining enough resources to survive. Major breakthroughs always lead to increases in population, and often have severe environmental consequences. Human history is, at its most fundamental level, the story of how ecological limitations have been circumvented and the consequences of doing so.
This article should give a brief overview of how natural resource use and human development are interlinked, and how the problems humanity is facing today are determined by the way human societies evolved in the last 10,000 years.
The idea of this lecture series is to allow Students from all disciplines to exchange their views on current global issues. The focus will lay on environmental politics. The year 2009 is a year of elections in Germany, and in the end of the year the further development in climate policies will be initiated in Kopenhagen. Therefore, discussion and engagement is necessary – but until now this is coming short among students in Hohenheim. The lectures will demonstrate the need for action, and together we will figure out how this action could look like.
The presentations take place every second Tuesday at the TMS. 45 minutes of presentation, by students, professors or extern contributors, will lay the foundations for arguments. Time for discussion follows. The lectures are accompanied by this blog, where the content is summarized and further opportunities for discussion are provided. The lectures and the blog will be held in English, in order to allow the international students to contribute with their valuable experiences.
2009 is a year of politics! Join in, be informed, and have your say!
