Climate change and energy transitions

This season we are organizing a series of educational activities and open informative events aimed at opening the dialogue on socio- ecological issues related to climate change as well as exploring solutions to sustainability issues related to the organization and management of human activity and natural resources in urban and rural areas. These activities focus on methods and practices to enhance the resilience and adaptability of human ecosystems to climate change and seek to motivate and support participants to work for positive changes in their daily lives to prevent impending ecological and social crises. Finally, they aim to enrich the participants’ knowledge about the applications and perspectives of renewable energy sources and to introduce the perspective of energy transitions. Specifically, the topics covered are the following:

• Basic concepts of climatology and introduction to the Mediterranean climate.

• Climate change: Phenomena and processes related to the deregulation of climate system mechanisms.

• Ecological and social impacts of climate change locally and globally.

• Future scenarios based on climatic simulation models.

• Practices and methods for reducing the ecological footprint and regenerative management of available resources in urban and suburban human ecosystems.

• Renewable energy sources and the energy transition to a sustainable low-carbon future.

• Energy Communities as a means of supporting people towards energy transitions.

Εducational activities include two periods, which take place in person on School of the Earth’s ‘New Guinea’ farm, during October 2021 and March – April 2022. Each period consists of 4 full day courses that take place on a weekly basis.

Additional informative events include:

– 4 presentations for students that will take place in person in schools of the nearby municipality of Rafina.

– 4 presentations for citizens of all ages that will take place live in social spaces of the municipality of Rafina (in person and also online).

The informative events take place during the same period as the educational activities.

The above activities are organized under the project “Renewable Energy Sources and Urban Ecosystems: Citizens’ Synergies for Adaptation to Climate Change and Energy Transition” implemented by the School of the Earth NGO, the Energy Community Collective Energy, the Municipality of Rafina, and the National Technical University of Athens, under the Measure “Innovative actions with citizens” in the axis: “Innovative actions” of the financial program “Natural environment & innovative actions 2020” of the Green Fund. Funding: Green Fund – Budget: 49,984 euros – Beneficiary: School of the Earth NGO – Co-beneficiaries: Collective Energy Community, Municipality of Rafina-Pikermi, National Technical University of Athens.