Environment

Environmental protection

„Environmental protection is an opportunity and not a burden we have to carry.“ Sihler, Helmuth, Manager and Honorary professor, Universität Münster

In this module you have already learned about various causes and forms of environmental damage and pollution. These ecological problems highlight for us how important environmental protection is. The path to sustainability is still very bumpy due to various societal, political and economic interests. However, at the local, regional, national and international levels both numerous institutions, state regulators, legal guidelines and community initiatives have sprung up to protect the environment. These range from international environmental conferences to the founding of the European Environmental Agency, national environmental reports, the legal requirement for transparent energy sourcing and the nuclear freedom of Austria, to the Ecoregion Kaindorf in Styria, which applies ecological principles in detail and seeks to achieve CO2 neutrality by 2020.

Find a newspaper article which deals with the topic of environmental protection and try to analyse it:

1. Which topic is dealt with?
2. Does this topic affect you personally? Whom does it affect?
3. Does this topic relate to a particular area of the environment (ground, air, water, living organisms)? Which one?
4. Does this topic affect several environmental areas? If so, how do you know this?
5. Are reasons for the importance of environmental protection as well as causes and consequences of environmental pollution given?
6. Are international organisations or NGOs already dealing with this issue? Which ones and how?
7. How does the author of the article handle this topic?

Sources

Hutter, Claus-Peter/ Blessing, Karin/ Köthe, Rainer (2012): Grundkurs Nachhaltigkeit. Handbuch für Einsteiger und Fortgeschrittene. Munich: Oekom
http://www.zitate.de/search?in=Quotes&q=Umwelt
http://www.greenpeace.org/austria/de/themen/atom/was-wir-tun/Raus-aus-Atomstrom/
http://www.oekoregion-kaindorf.at/