The ecovillages approach to climate

Climate change is one of the biggest issues of humankind in the 21st century, but is a symptom of a much bigger issue: We humans do not live sustainably on earth! Modern society focuses mainly on new and green technologies and greater efficiency as solution of climate change and this is of course one step towards climate protection. But much more is possible!

The ecovillage movement is a bottom-up approach from people, who do not want to wait for policy or technology solving the climate change problem. Ecovillages are models of experienced sustainability and show that a more sustainable living is possible without affecting our quality of life. They test in a microcosm what can be adopted on a large scale. There are four keys in the ecovillages approach to climate change: ecological, economic, social and worldview.

This seminar consists of three parts:

In the first part we get known to the ZEGG community. The ZEGG community is an ecovillage of 100 people living and working together cooperatively, with a CO2 footprint per person only half as big as the average in Germany. This is possible due our renewable energy and heat supply system, our garden and the edible landscapes, our water supply, constructed wetland and compost toilets.

In the second part of the seminar we summarize what climate science knows about climate change and which solutions it suggests. We discuss the arguments of the climate skeptics and try to understand why it is so hard for policy to make a new climate protection agreement. This part part will be taken over by Dr. Tobias Bayr. He is a climate scientist, who did his PhD about climate change and lived one year in ZEGG.

In the third part of the seminar we deepen the ecovillage approach to climate change. Beside ecological aspects we will focus on the social and worldview aspects, i.e. we give a little insight, which instruments we use in ZEGG for community building and for communication. Conscious communication from the heart