Students:Kateřina Racková

Personal info

Name and surname: Kateřina Racková

Age: 24

Education: International development studies, Department of development, Faculty of science, Palacký University in Olomouc... (half completed, only diploma thesis needs to be done)

Interests: advanturous travelling around developing countries, technology, nature

Experience: ERASMUS at Sheffield Hallam in the UK: Environmental studies; voluntary projects in Morocco in 2010 and in Ghana in 2012; teaching English and Geography to students of all age groups ranging from nursery to high school

My view of sustainability

Sustainability is an ambiguous concept starting with the basic definition of sustainable development invented by Gro Harlem Bruntland in 1987 in the document "Our common future". According to this document sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future generations to meet their needs. This definition is very anthropocentric therefore I prefer definitions which contain also environmental aspect.

In my view all the aspects need to be harmonised. Development should be socially equitable, economically viable and environmentally friendly. Fundamental changes are necessary in order to prevent human race from extinction as our current development is definitelly not sustainable. Both renewable and non-renewable exhaustible resources are being depleted, our industry and agriculture consume more energy than they produce and together with households they produce enormous amount of waste and pollution therefore overload ecosystem services.

Humans need to learn how to live within the Earth`s carrying capacity. The best way how to do that is to let us be inspired by nature. The most perfect and sustainable technologies we try to invent already exist! In addition to technological aspects we also need to change our values and lifestyle from consumer culture to non-materialistic one.

Personally I at least try to recycle, save energy, buy ecologically produced food and use thigs until they break. I am always happy to learn about new sustainable iniciatives therefore I am looking forward to our sustainability field trip to Germany where I hope I can get further inspiration for my efforts to live sustainably.

The best solution is to combine this bottom-up approach with top-down approach. What the world needs most in the present is political will, posibilly widely respected international organisation or a charismatic leader who will desighn and guide us through transition from consumer capitalistic system to sustainability. However, it may be painful process and many people and corporations will fight against the transition...

Day 1 Sunday 9th June

"What a beautiful day!" This was the first day of sustainability field trip to Luneburg in Germany. Very diverse mix of non-Prague students from different universities across the Czech Republic led by Andrew and Dana from Environmental Center of the Charles University decided to visit friendly neighbors to get inspired by their best practices regarding sustainable development. The goal of the field trip was to educate future "leaders" of the Czech Republic! Around 11 AM these future leaders met above Prague train main station and jumped on a minibus which took them to Germany. Their journey was almost eight hours long with a stop in Usti na Labem and a few gas stops in Germany. Students chatted lively during first hours but then they slowly fell asleep and there was a silence...and hot! In the evening group finally arrived, thanks to the skilled driver, to Luneburg Sportspark, their new home for the upcoming week. Such an interesting place! Our group was going to live on a stadium :) After delicious dinner they introduced ourselves in a form of name game. Name game revealed very interesting associations: Delicious Dana, Valuable Veronika, Junk Jarda, Curious Kristýna, Easy Eliška, Jealous Jitka, Clever Cute and Crazy Katie, Dangerous Diana, Magical Meggie, Joyful Jana, Marvelous Martin, Adventurous Agniezska, Doubtful Daniel, Modest Martin and Amiable Andrew. Some of the group members went to sleep and some...coud not fall asleep due to snoring roommates...

Day 2 Monday 10th June

"Day with mixed results." To summarize, second day brought charming German type men, delicious and healthy lunch at Leuphana University mensa, participative workshop at the university but also boring lecture about sustainability in sub-coma state of mind after lunch when at least half of the students almost fell asleep, a quarter channeled all the energy on trying not to fall asleep and the rest seemed to be engaged :D Unfortunatelly for the students of International Development Studies there was no new information about sustainability which contributed largely to sub-coma! On the other hand some of the students certainly discovered new useful information or were inspired to think about sustainability from different perspective.

Day 3 Tuesday 11th June

Programme on Tuesday started at the Leuphana University with a lecture about renewable energy presented by Alexa Lutzenberger. The lecture consisted of many unexplained graphs and was based on unrealistic expectation that Germany is able to cover its energy consumption by renewable resources up to 100 %. If all the countries in the world followed Germany that would tigger world wars for minerals and hurt developing countries which is definitelly unsustainable and immoral practice. After the presetation we went for a campus tour. Second part of the day was far more interesting, actually it was one of the best and most useful experience during the field trip. Excursion to Neu Wulmstorf landfill offered a new view on use of former landfill. The idea to use former landfill and its surface to produce energy and provide recreation is amazing. Excursion was guided by dr. Tilman Wolfsteller, a real expert who explained how PV panels, wind turbines and gas electricity generation works there. In the late afternoon we visited Hamburg where we enjoyed time as tourists and socialized ourselves :)

Day 4 Wednesday 12th June

"Most enriching day of the field trip, visit to rural areas near Luneburg" In the morning group visited Alfred Toepfler Academy of Nature Conservation at Schneverdingen. Susanne Eilers has focused on the methods how to popularized sustainability to the public - young people or local inhabitants - by the form of non-scientific way. For example by various games or direct discussions with residents. The most interesting part was her experience with using interactive sustainability game in the conference with scientists and politicians. We went to Lueneburg Heath after where we heard (from Jan Brockman) a lot about a history of heats in Germany especially in Lower Saxony. And also about the management of heathlands in present days. The third event was a visit Baukhof dynamic organic farm very interestingly guided by Ralf Weber. Our visit was accompanied by uncommon lunch with local farmers. So far every place we went was very inspirative and we can only hope that we will see similar methods guaranteeing sustainability in Czech Republic as well.