How the last IPCC report may change our diet

7.30 am, a rainy morning in July. It’s colder than the past few days which have been really warm, raindrops patter on the window. The first glance at my phone, a pop-up message from a newspaper is awaiting me: “IPCC: Global temperatures have risen by 1.5°C over land”. I want to sink back into bed, […]

Share this

A review on the World Conference for Science Journalists

Media is under fire, worldwide. Science as well – at least in some countries. The rise of nationalism and protectionism lead to less confidence in scientific findings as well as to more mistrust towards media. Fake news is another factor impacting people’s trust in news and science. Therefore, it is even more important that high […]

Share this

Klimawald Bayreuth: About planting trees and seeing change

„I feel responsibility for the project”, Kun Woo Ro says. He is sitting in the Asia section of the Ecological-Botanical Garden in Bayreuth, on a bench surrounded by blooming Rhododendron bushes. Yellow, orange and pink flowers are turning this part of the garden into a colourful idyll. The project he is talking about is “Klimawald […]

Share this

Katowice Climate Change Conference in Poland 2018

By: Alexander Lentge In December 2018, fellow GCE students and I went to the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference which was held at Katowice, Poland. I attended the second week of the conference from December 10th to 14th. As I stayed in Kraków, I used a shuttle bus every day to get to and […]

Share this

Klimawald: forest-for-future

By: Theresa Landwehr , Kun Ro, and Nikunj Pathak  Tree plantation: 25-27 April 2019 Back to the 17th century, when the mining industry in Saxony was threatened by the scarcity of forests, Hans Carl von Carlowitz formulated principles for sustainable forestry. In his work Sylvicultura Oeconomica oder naturmäßige Anweisung zur wilden Baum-Zucht (Sylvicultura Oeconomica or […]

Share this

A young girl with the wish to save our planet

“Every Friday, we sit outside the Swedish Parliament until Sweden is in line with the Paris Agreement.” Greta Thunberg has a defiant look in her eyes while she is speaking these words. Powerful words that have brought her a lot of attention during the last weeks. The 15-year old Swedish girl with two braids has […]

Share this

Make palm oil small again!

In the last blog posts about palm oil, we gave you some insights about the huge impact of this material in our daily lives and told you about the problems. It is crucial to overthink our consumption and to try to use products with no palm oil – or plant-based oils in general, as the […]

Share this

“I want to reward companies with a good impact”

It requires a little luck and steadiness to reach Benjamin Von Wong. And it also requires a lot of organizational talent regarding the time difference between Germany and the US west coast. But when we finally “meet” via Skype, the 31-year-old photographer is a very interesting and dedicated interview partner and not really what one […]

Share this

Experiment: Tracking down palm oil

In my last article, I wrote about palm oil and the problems with this substance found almost everywhere. Instead of only writing about the problems I decided to take action and have a closer look at how palm oil is influencing my daily life. So, let’s begin with the facts. To find out when I […]

Share this

How does the new German government affect climate policies?

Finally, we have certainty: After months and months of negotiations, hope, disappointments and lots of discussions, Germany has a new government! But what does this mean for the German climate politics? The green party „Die Grünen“ was not able to join the government after the surprising drop-out of the FDP (free democratic party) and the […]

Share this