Green Campus

Technology at the Service of the Environment

Campus Verde (Green Campus) began in 2007, and under the premise to use technology to fight against climate change: a series of initiatives were put into practice to try to awaken sensitivity, implication and complicity amongst its participants in the defence of the environment.

These objectives materialised into specific activities such as the commitment to reduce CO₂ emissions, the protection of the environment and the efficient use of energy through new technologies.

In Campus Party Europe, this aspect of the event will become relevant again thanks to the conferences from Patrick Blanc and the presentation of the Plataforma Solar de Alemería (Solar Platform, Almeria), the biggest in Europe. 

Conference • 04/16/2010 - 10.00h
Patrick Blanc (France)

Photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Blanc

Youtube Inventor of the Vegetable Garden, a patent of his own making, with which this botanic investigator who works for the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS National Centre of Scientific Research) looks for the return to nature of the urban environment. His novel works have revolutionised the world of architecture and landscaping: they can be found in Paris, Qatar, India or Kuala Lumpur, among other places. The vegetable wall that Patrick Blanc constructs is made of artificial materials that allow the plants to take root vertically and they obtain their nutrients through gravity and a system also invented by him. It is capable of transforming the entrances of a real tunnel into an authentic “vertical forest” that counteracts the CO₂ emissions.

Conference • 04/16/2010 - 15.00h
The State of Health of the Cryosphere: Glaciers

A conference from the Spanish scientist Francisco Navarro on the state of health of the glaciers. He will connect live to the base of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Barentsburg, in the Arctic, where another scientist from the same investigative team, Francisco Machío, will show us how they study the glaciers with a georadar. The work of this instrument on the glacier, pulled by snowmobiles, or at a certain height by itself (from a helicopter or plane), allows them to determine the structure and physical properties of the glacier (thickness of the ice, internal stratification, density, endo-glacier water channels, cracks hidden by snowfall, etc.).

Conference • 04/15/2010 - 16.00h
HIRIKO: Driving Mobility

An innovative solution that transforms the urban environment and the automotive industry for sustainable mobility of XXI century new cities. 100% urban, 100% electric, 100% sustainable. And all this within a new modular production and distributed model which is part of an innovative system of analysis and new solutions for urban mobility.

Conference • 04/17/2010 - 11.00h
Solar Platform, Almeria (Spain)

Diego Martínez, director of the complex that belongs to the Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT, Centre for Energy, Environmental and Technological Investigations), will present the biggest centre for investigation, development and testing in Europe dedicated to solar concentration technologies.  The objective of the installation is that of R+D on the possible industrial applications of thermal solar energy and solar chemistry.  It is distributed over a terrain of 103 hectares, situated in the Desert of Tabernas (Almeria).

Conference • 04/16/2010 - 15.30h
Earth: The Blue but Thirsty Planet

Youtube Professor Enrique Cabrera, director of the group for investigation of engineering and technology of water at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, one of the centres of reference on a worldwide level in the management of water, will explain to us the greatest challenges of the XXI Century for humanity. One of them receives little attention from the press, but will be the cause of wars and conflicts as well as huge political and technological changes: water. Water covers three quarters of the world’s surface, although only 3% of that water is fresh water and only 1% is not found in the poles. The world population has grown exponentially in the last 50 years. Human needs have also grown, and with it the need for clean water in developed countries, or increase quality of life in developing countries.

Climate change will make the problem worse in the coming decades, making the sharing of fresh water more and more difficult. Our planet, so blue when seen from a distance, may become in just a few years, a thirsty planet. Over the next decades, humanity will have to prepare itself to make huge changes that will allow it to continue to improve itself in a more sustainable way. Some of these changes will be technological, helping us to achieve more water or reduce consumption. Others will be political and will have to achieve equal distribution and prioritization of the use of the water that we have.