Kapa007

/Teachers' background

Teachers's background

In addition to university's professors: Geoffrey Caruso, Christian Schulz, Markus Hesse whose CV’s can be found on the uni.lu website, this Master's program welcomes lots of lectures from “experts”.

Visiting experts

Dr Kai Böhme gives lectures on ESPON maps and tries to show how maps can be partial, politically oriented, politically correct…, how they can influence our vision of reality, depending on choices made beforehand.

Philipp Schmidt-Thome is a geographer and a specialist of hydrogeology, engineering geology and geology. He gives a one day lecture on natural hazards and how spatial planning can mitigate them.

Romain Diederich who is the current Luxembourgish Government first Advisor has worked on setting up our Master's Program and gives an introduction on Luxembourg spatial planning systems.

Thiemo W. Eser is responsible for European Affairs at the Ministry for Sustainable Development and Infrastructure and teaches multi-level governance.

Dominique Peeters is probably the teacher who goes the deepest into spatial analysis theories. His strong background in applied sciences is challenging for those without any background in geography.

/On the way to transition

On the way to transition…

1.1 Origins

Transition is a path from oil dependency to local resilience. To face the on-going ecological, energetical and economical crises, local population, part of a transition initiative, start acting for a better and less vulnerable future.

1.3 Luxembourg

The first initiative of the group in Luxembourg is a Community garden. It is a pilot project in Luxembourg city. Western food dependency on fossil resources is huge. Local food production is then the best way for population to reach food resilience. Therefore, starting a Community garden and working with sustainable methods seemed inevitable. Education, solidarity, ecology - related to permaculture principles - are the objectives of the community gardeners, all volunteering in this common action. Getting a yield is not the first concern but skills and knowledge.

1.3.1 Trigger

• Inaugural meeting: June 2011

• September 2011: Public event and open discussion on peak oil, which is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. According to author Richard Heinberg and a growing number of major experts, we are entering an era of declines, not only in global oil but also in natural gas, coal extraction, grain harvests, fresh water, minerals and ores, such as copper and platinum.

• Bulleted list item

November 2011: collaborative workshop about a community garden. 1.3.2 Local initiatives