• Energy Challenge Seminar
• 1 open credit
• For free

The relationship between societies and ecosystem has never been easy. But, our impact on environment during most part of history has been, to some extent, limited. It is indisputable that modern technology has provided great benefits to Humankind. However, at the same time, the increase of global population and the amount of the necessary resources to keep it, united to the progress and the scientific technology complex, has made that our impact on the environment is quantitative largest and qualitatively different.

Nowadays, the consequences of our activities have a global reach, and can affect to a great part of Humankind. Their impacts can only be detected by science, following a process that is not comprehensible by many people: they are not, therefore, directly perceptible. Sometimes, the environmental problems manifest in an indirect or an unspeakably slow way that is why time passing can affect the next generations.

We can find the mark of our actions in every imaginable place: on the crop lands abandoned due to desertification, on the ozone depletion, in the presence of artificial chemical compounds on the breast milk…

Yes, we must change our relationship with nature. That is why it is necessary to understand the global change, the group of transformations that are happening in our environment as a consequence of our activities. We also must understand which are the basic working rules of nature that impose to society, for ecosystems not to degrade and keep providing indispensable goods and services for our survival. Thus, we must go on towards a sustainable world.

In the seminar, this issue will be analysed, focusing on the energy challenge.

Energy Challenge. Towards a New Sustainable Energy System

• 26 February. “Energy Efficiency” Making more with less.
• 26 March. “Solar Energy”. The brightest alternative.
• 23 April. “Biofuels”. From rice straw to fuel.
• 7 May. “Energy Challenge”

Thursday 4 p.m.

Hall of Degrees of the Faculty of Chemistry.