Students:Agnieszka Buchtová: Difference between revisions

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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".
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".
== Me and sustainability ==  
== Me and sustainability ==  
== Day 0 (9th June) ==
Trip to Luneburg, accomodating, dinner. After the dinner we played some introducing games and we talkt about our point of view on the whole sustainability concept. The evening was very nice.


== Day 1 (10th June)==
== Day 1 (10th June)==
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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%.
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.
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.
== Day 5 (14th June) ==
The last day was spent on listening to experts and PhD students describing their projects. In the end we had a group brain storming and we created our own projects on improving the sustainability situation in Czech republic. I really enjoyed this part of the day.
The way home was long but safe and comfortable thanks to our grat driver Pepa.
== Summary ==
The two most inspiring things I´ve learnt during this amazing field trip was the idea of reusing landfills to make energy of the gaz that they produce and involving students in agriculture.I´d like to speak about the second one.
Baukhof farm we visited on the third day was an amazing place that engages whole community to their system of production. They are open on help of local people and every year they welcome students from allied schools to spend two weeks on the farm and work with the soil and animals.
<p> I feel that today´s youth in Czech republic slowly lose their connection with agriculture. Youndg people have no experience with farming, they don´t know where meat and milk comes from and thy do not care about quality of the food and well fare of animals.
There used to be obligatory part-time jobs in agriculture during the communism epoch when students, children and even adults had to help with harvesting or collecting leef beetles. Many of them hated this obligatory work but there´s no doubt that they at least got an experience of hard work and argiculture system.
That´s why I think that we should try to involve Czech students in the process of producing food and encourage schools to start similar projects to the one they have in Baukhof. If young people get to know biodynamic agriculture as well as
wildlife, they will probably make efforts to lead more sustainable life. And tahat´s what wee need. We need new technologies and zero energy houses and green energies but the thing we need most are people who want to use it and who will support green politics and modest living.
I´d like to say big thanks to Dana and Andrew for organising this trip, for being so good and patient to us and helping to create such a good bunch. The trip was very well organised ad the only thing I missed a bit was repeating of the first evening when we all gathered after the dinner and had a semi-seroius semi-friendly talk about our opinions and ideas.
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