Students:Agnieszka Buchtová

Something little about me

I'm 21 years old and I'm from the border town of Český Těšín. I've lived in Brno for 16 years. I attended the Matyáš Lerch French high school where I graduated and now I study at Masaryk University in Brno - the Faculty of Social Studies. My departments are Environmental Studies and International Relations. I like reading poems, eating raspberries, walking in the woods and singing. In future, I'd like to have a useful job in the environmental sector, lead a modest life, have a family and I'd love to travel.

Me and sustainability

Well, I don't think that the standard of life we have today in "developed countries" could be ever sustainable. We're exploiting the Third World, nature and each other. If we want to make our lives sustainable, we have to cut down on our living standards. I'm a kind of idealist, but I doubt that all our western culture could ever start to act altruistically. And all kinds of other efforts that we think could lead to sustainability are useless without a change in our thinking and our values. My current opinion is that the sustainability process could only slow the fall of our civilisation. Mabye there's no place for sustainable development. There's only a place for "sustainable retreat".

Day 1 (10th June)

We explored the city of Luneburg, then we were introduced to the concept of sustainability by PD Dr. Maik Adomßent. After a break we had a workshop with two members of the student organisation Oikos, which is attempting to make the university more sustainable.

Day 2 (11th June)

- We started with a presentation by Dr. Alexa Lutzenberger on sustainability projects in Germany. Her presentation was for me the most important event of the day. It made me think (and doubt) about the big business of renewable energies in this country. Obviously Germany wants to have a monopoly on sustainability know-how and wants other countries to follow. But if every European country starts to buy PV panels, wind turbines, and starts to import biomass and starts to plant and import fuel plants, the impact on the Third world will be catastrophic. There will be new ways to exploit poor countries, new conflicts, new environmental catastrophes and new wars... I´m still not persuaded about the nature of German good intentions. We continued with a guided campus tour and we saw some interesting student projects. We spent a lovely afternoon in Hamburg.

Day 3 (12th June)

This was very inspiring day of our stay. We saw Saxon heaths and had a guided tour. The history of the heaths was a great example of how a non-sustainable economy can destroy the whole regional community and cause emigration. Afterwards, we moved to the first biodynamic farm in Lower Saxony and had a great guided tour around the property. I appreciated all the information we received and the experience of farm life.

Day 4 (13th June)

Today we spent the morning having a lesson with a young politician from local Green Party. In Lower Saxony, the Green Party has about 30% of the power [Andrew: that's the share on the Luneburg city council]. In whole Germany it´s about 10 to 13%. Another thing that was very interesting was the new "sustainable" quarter in Hamburg that we visited in the afternoon. We got to know the whole project, visited modern and green houses and discussed their advantages and disadvantages.