Biodiversity crisis, climate crisis, multiple crises - challenges and solutions

Christine von Weizsäcker was the keynote speaker at this year's Sustainability Lecture. The biologist and environmental activist explained why the biodiversity crisis in particular is often neglected in the current sustainability discourse. Six final theses that were awarded the University's Sustainability Award 2023 illustrated how solutions can be found in certain areas.

At the beginning of the event, which was organized by the Competence Centre for Sustainable Development (KNE) at the Ethics Centre (IZEW), Prof. Dr. Thomas Potthast emphasized that this year the jury did not find it easy to select the six theses from a large number of outstanding applications.

Three bachelor's and three master's theses were awarded. The Bachelor's prizewinners are Mareike Andert (Political Science), Jana Mayer (Environmental Sciences) and Leonie Sohr (Teaching Ethics/Philosophy and Chemistry). Mareike Andert dedicated her thesis to the planned Neckar-Alb regional light rail system and investigated the extent to which the narratives used by supporters and opponents of the project led to the decision against the inner-city route through Tübingen. In order to assess the impact of wind farms on a continental level, Jana Mayer examined conflicts between planned wind farms and nature reserves on the African continent. Leonie Sohr evaluated the use of phosphonates in detergents, whose degradation products are classified as environmentally critical, from an ethical point of view.

The prize-winning Master's theses were written by Niklas Best (Geoecology), Carina Haller (International Economics) and Jonas Mertens (Molecular Medicine). Niklas Best's thesis was dedicated to recording two ecosystem services in urban areas and showed how cities can contribute to environmental and climate protection. In her work, Carina Haller analyzed the energy consumption of low-income households and derived socio-political implications from this. Jonas Mertens investigated which immune mechanisms can be used to stop the spread of the malaria pathogen Plasmodium in the liver and made the connection to the UN Sustainable Development Goal "Health and Well-being".

"Please don't be surprised if I don't talk about pandas, orchids and whales." This is how Christine von Weizsäcker opened her Sustainability Lecture following the award ceremony - and promised a differentiated view of the current crises. The biologist, who has received many awards for her commitment, has sat at the negotiating table of various international agreements for the protection of the environment and is still a member of numerous scientific and civil society organizations.

Although Ms. von Weizsäcker described the UN "Convention on Biological Diversity" (CBD/Convention on biological diversity, 1992) as the high point of multilateral agreements, she also named setbacks and challenges at the same time. Global status reports show that the loss of biodiversity is still increasing dramatically today, and although key drivers have been identified, they have by no means been halted. To this day, biodiversity-damaging behaviour is even subsidized unchecked in large parts: "Biodiversity policy must fail as long as so much is invested in measures that systematically destroy nature". She was stunned by the EU Commission's recent decision to extend the approval of the total herbicide glyphosate for a further ten years.

The biodiversity crisis is 'just' one of many other crises. Ms. von Weizsäcker focused on poverty, hunger, wars, climate change and the power of corporations and the super-rich, among other things. In the search for answers to these crises, we encounter weak legal systems, growing insecurity, polarization, deeply indebted states and rich countries that would rather clear their conscience with CO₂ certificates than adapt their lifestyle. New, supposedly nature-based solutions are also causing sometimes insoluble land conflicts in reality. Ms. von Weizsäcker, on the other hand, sees real solutions in rich countries taking genuine responsibility, e.g. through strong supply chain laws. The principles of the 1992 UN environmental conference in Rio have lost none of their significance to this day. The sectoral objectives of the 17 UN sustainability goals are more problematic: What actually counts are consolidated positions as a consensus between different sectors and the integration of different policy areas, as the keynote speaker illustrated using the example of the "One Health" concept.

She also identified obstacles to finding solutions in the current scientific system: For example, science is increasingly only seen as a contribution to international competitiveness and it is considered unscientific to propose political solutions. Accordingly, she appealed to established scientists to explicitly promote inter- and transdisciplinary excellence and take it into account when making appointments. At the same time, she called for intellectual modesty: Pointing out gaps in knowledge helps to advance interdisciplinary and intercultural collaboration, she said.

Finally, Ms. von Weizsäcker questioned whether the term "crisis" was even appropriate: many of the current "crises" had not occurred suddenly and unexpectedly. She preferred to speak of a "search for a seamlessly viable, damage-minimizing, resource-conflict-avoiding and just way of transitioning to a more sustainable culture". The biologist has high hopes for a science that responds to the multiple crises with systemic, multidimensional, inter- and transdisciplinary and participatory approaches and contributes to solutions. In this spirit - and that of the sustainability awards - she concluded by emphasizing the role of universities as "places of structurally supported, shared learning that promotes and celebrates creative knowledge breakthroughs".

Report: Maximilian Irion und Charlotte Müller

Link to the recording:
The Sustainability Lecture 2023 was recorded and published on the University of Tübingen's media portal ("timms"):
https://timms.uni-tuebingen.de/

In the well-filled ballroom of the Alte Aula, this year's sustainability awards for final theses of the University of Tübingen were presented on November 29, 2022, organized by the Competence Center for Sustainable Development (KNE). Sociologist Prof. Dr. Armin Nassehi delivered the Sustainability Lecture 2022.

"I am not talking about CO₂, the coronavirus, or military strategic questions in the context of war," made Armin Nassehi, a native of Tübingen, clear at the beginning of his lecture titled "Climate, War, Corona: The Overburdened Society". This announcement was both surprising and understandable, given that the Munich sociologist is involved in various political advisory committees but does not develop solutions from a natural science or medical perspective. So, what added value is there in analyzing the current crises from a sociological perspective? Nassehi underlined the sociological relevance of the topic by stating that "crises refer to something happening in society". As a scholar, he is interested in how a society can cope with self-generated crises using its own means.

His response refers to the subtitle of his book published in 2021, "Discomfort," and the headline of the lecture: Society is overwhelmed with its crises. Nassehi described a crisis as the experience of disturbed interdependence, of incompatible expectations and desires for life. At the same time, a crisis reveals how vulnerable our complex system is and the goal conflicts that functional differentiation within society leads to. "What follows from this are collective crises, but society does not act as a collective", analyzed the sociologist. His argumentation is particularly evident in the context of climate change: How can we harness forces when politics primarily focuses on majority building, the economy on financial growth, and science on gaining knowledge and identifying research gaps? Therefore, much-needed action is hindered because it does not fit into existing role concepts and cultural contexts, Nassehi concluded. One possible solution? "We need translational science that, similar to medicine, translates findings from basic sciences into broad practice", suggested Nassehi, although he acknowledged that trust in scientific knowledge would be gained not based on scientific principles but mainly based on political and economic criteria.

At the Sustainability Awards ceremony just before Nassehi's Sustainability Lecture, how translational-oriented sustainability science can be achieved and how various perspectives can be brought together became evident: The University of Tübingen, represented by Chancellor Dr. Andreas Rothfuß, honored students for their outstanding final theses related to sustainable development for the twelfth time. As the studies of the award winners demonstrated, sustainability is by no means a topic limited to a single discipline. Three bachelor's and three master's theses from various fields were awarded: Hanna Disch (Cognitive Science) developed statistical models using time series for optimizing solar energy use in her bachelor's thesis, Anne Krehl (Biology) examined the effect of plastic on water content and plant fitness in different types of soil, and Nike Andrea Macht (Environmental Natural Sciences) assessed the impact of ozonation in wastewater treatment plants on water quality. The awarded master's theses were authored by Alexandra Riegger (Teaching degree for Mathematics and Chemistry), who designed and evaluated a BNE (Bildung für Nachhaltige Entwicklung, Education for Sustainable Development) teaching unit for mathematics, Tatjana Tull (Evolution and Ecology), who analyzed the pollution of chironomid larvae by tire and road abrasion, and Carolin Walper (Physical Geography - Environmental Geography), who researched vegetation-specific consequences of sand dunes in semiarid regions.

The event concluded with a reception, providing an opportunity for the guests to engage in further conversation with the award winners and Armin Nassehi.

You can find the recording of the Sustainability Lecture 2022 starting at minute 51 here.

The keynote speech, the Sustainability Lecture, was delivered by the British economist Prof. Kate Raworth, who presented her globally acclaimed concept of the "Doughnut Economy." She vividly introduced the "Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries" as an alternative to the prevailing economics. In this context, the shape of the classic donut symbolizes two limits within which economic activities must operate: social minimum standards that should not be undershot and planetary boundaries that must not be exceeded. Depending on the focus, the donut can be applied to the entire world, a nation, a city, or individual lives. The goal must be to respect these boundaries and to move towards the "safe and just space for humanity" within the "Doughnut area" in the future.

During her presentation, Prof. Raworth highlighted the necessity of collective action and changes to the current economic system. Shifting from degenerative to regenerative principles and adopting distributed instead of divisive work methods can and must change fundamental dynamics in society. She presented examples from various cities (including Amsterdam) and provided insights into the work of the "Doughnut Economics Action Lab," which she founded in 2020.

The lecture was rounded off by questions and a lively discussion among the in-person and digital guests. Many of the attendees were inspired by Raworth's motivational speech and pondered the titular question: "Can Tübingen live within the Doughnut?"

You can access the recording here

held digitally for the first time this year. Approximately 140 guests attended the ceremony from their screens as Chancellor Dr. Andreas Rothfuß opened the awards ceremony with a few words about the university's current activities in sustainable development. Following his speech, the six awardees (three Bachelor's and three Master's theses) were honored. They presented their award-winning works from the fields of Biology, Ethnology, Geoecology, Media Studies, and Economics in short presentations. "We have been awarding this prize for ten years now. The interest in it is enormous, and it is particularly pleasing that the range of disciplines from which we receive applications is continually expanding. Sustainable development is a topic that moves young people, and they are committed to it. The fact that students at our university have the opportunity and take advantage of it to conduct research on sustainable development at the highest scientific level is fantastic", said Professor Thomas Potthast, Chairman of the Advisory Board for Sustainable Development and moderator of the awards ceremony.

This year's keynote address was delivered by Prof. Dr. h. c. Cornelia Füllkrug-Weitzel, President of "Brot für die Welt" (Bread for the World) and "Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe" (Diakonie Emergency Aid): "Sustainable Development under Pressure: How do we shape globalization in times of Corona?" was the central question of her "Sustainability Lecture".

As the year 2020 draws to a close, the global society finds itself in a state of global emergency due to the coronavirus pandemic and its profound impacts. The pandemic affects us all, but not everyone to the same extent. Existing global and local injustices are amplified by the pandemic, as if through a magnifying glass, and it becomes evident how urgently profound transformations are needed. In her lecture, Cornelia Füllkrug-Weitzel vividly described how the COVID-19 crisis not only endangers the health of many people but also acts as an exacerbator of crises in parts of the world that are particularly affected by poverty, lack of social safety nets, the consequences of climate change, and distribution conflicts. The pandemic worsens poverty and hunger worldwide, disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable, such as the seamstress in Bangladesh, the coffee farmer in Guatemala, and the casual laborer in Chad. The progress made in development cooperation over the past decades is being undone by the pandemic and its economic consequences.

At the same time, there has been a erosion of the democratic model and a resurgence of authoritarian nationalism in many parts of the world for several years. The much-touted world community, according to Füllkrug-Weitzel, is currently not very visible. This was different five years ago when the United Nations adopted the Paris Agreement, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the principles of global development financing in Addis Ababa. In the current situation, this global community orientation is lacking.

However, how do we, especially in Germany, shape globalization in times of the Corona pandemic to mitigate its negative consequences? A central point for Cornelia Füllkrug-Weitzel is the Supply Chain Act. Companies that cause or accept damages to people and the environment in their supply chains must be held accountable. "Our own problems are being solved at the expense of the weakest in other countries", she describes the current situation. The principle of "Leave No One Behind" must not be lost sight of (not only in times of pandemics). A strong international partnership that vigorously advocates for the poorest countries is more important than ever.

Cornelia Füllkrug-Weitzel's compelling lecture vividly demonstrated to all listeners the importance of not losing sight of the global perspective during the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, the pandemic acts as an "accelerator of crises", but it could also stimulate a global rethinking towards sustainable development. This opportunity should not be left unused by anyone and should be embraced by all.

Every German citizen produces 617 kg of waste every year - that is much more than our planet can handle. There is another way, say Shia and Hanno Su. Both live since 2014 nearly garbage-free and firmly believe that this life-style has not only nothing to do with renouncement, but on the contrary even enriches one' s own life.

On November 27, 2019, the University of Tübingen awarded the Sustainability Prize for outstanding theses for the ninth time. Chancellor Dr. Andreas Rothfuß presented certificates for three bachelor's and three master's theses each, which deal with topics of sustainable development in an outstanding manner. The prize winners then gave short presentations of their award-winning works from the fields of geo-ecology, economics, geography, computer science and political science. Afterwards, bloggers and authors Shia and Hanno Su held this year's Sustainability Lecture "Zero Waste - A Life Without Waste"?

Shia and Hanno Su took us with them on their journey to Zero Waste, which they embarked on five years ago, and were able to convince the audience that their lifestyle has nothing to do with renunciation - on the contrary, they both feel it is a great enrichment and gain. The source of inspiration and starting point for Siva and Hanno's journey were conversations with their grandmother, who told them how in the past very little garbage was produced in the countryside. Once the Sus had emptied their own cupboards and stocks, they could gradually think about where they could buy new food unpackaged. Not only were there weekly markets or the Iranian store around the corner, but also first experiences with buying fruit and vegetables in laundry nets in the supermarket and the six-hour odyssey to Kiel, to the next store without packaging, were described to us.

The heart of the journey towards Zero Waste is the avoidance of new purchases. Here, everyone has to ask themselves the question whether the new things are really needed or can't be replaced otherwise. For example by borrowing from friends or neighbors. This also strengthens cohesion and you get to know the people you live with better. Making and producing things yourself can also be a good solution. Here Shia reported how she was able to sew a little bag for spaghetti from the sleeve of an old children's pyjamas so that she could also buy it in the store without packaging, which is now only two hours away. Only as a last option, the new purchase comes, when all previous possibilities could not reach.

This trip was done step by step with Shia and Hanno, which we also have to remember if we want to avoid garbage ourselves. There is no switch that can simply be flipped, it is about the long-term change of routines. Here, for example, a few "ingredients" that you can always carry in your backpack help: a cloth bag for shopping, cutlery so that you don't have to take plastic cutlery with you, a vegetable net, cloth handkerchiefs and also a jar for preserving food. By the way, according to Shia and Hanno, you can also buy salads and even French fries in a jar.

The two did not let themselves be put off on their way and they were not embarrassed to ask for garbage-free alternatives. They explained how meaningful it is to swim against the current when it comes to waste avoidance and not to be put off when something might be unpleasant. Shia and Hanno reported that people reacted much more positively to their efforts than they had imagined at the beginning, and that they received a lot of support - for example, from the owner of a health food store, who placed the sliced tofu from the fresh food counter on a plate and took it out of the hygiene zone so that the Sus could put it in the can they brought along. They also gave this to all the listeners as a tip for our own way: Know the hygiene regulations so that you know what is possible!

In the following Q&A session, Shia and Hanno told us how they are doing with cosmetics, medication and toilet paper and advised us to pay attention to short delivery routes and regional producers in order to keep the virtual plastic footprint as small as possible. The inspiring lecture of the Sus made all listeners aware in a sympathetic way how simple but also important it is to reduce our waste in order to fight together for a more sustainable world.

Video recording Sustainability Lecture 2019

Satish Kumar

On Thursday, November 30th 2017, the Indian environmental activist and author Satish Kumar held the Sustainability Lecture on the issue "Soil, Soul, Society - how to bring environment, spirituality and humanity together". In his passionate and motivating speech, Mr Kumar emphasized the interplay of nature and human life. Nature is not a resource that can be exploited for economic profit and higher wages, but a source of life. Only if the elements of nature - fire, water, earth, and air - are in equilibrium, human beings will be able to live well. This is because humans are made up of the same parts: Fire for passion and love, water, since the human body consists of 70 percent of it, earth, because everything human beings are eating derives directly from the earth, and air that we need to breathe. For example, if we pollute the air, we still have to breathe it, if we poison the water, we still need it for life. This ingenious balance has been disturbed and disrupted by us as human beings; therefore, only we are able to bring it back into balance again. No matter how difficult this may seem, there is no single problem that cannot be solved and tackled by looking at its substance – genius simplifies and acts! Since Universities have trained many of today's decision-makers who are responsible for the current situation on earth, they now have to take responsibility and must play an important role for the change of the current situation. Universities must teach a holistic perspective which not only includes economic factors, but also teaches students the importance of the natural balance. Satish Kumar is sure: if each and every person contributes to this change, we will be able to solve one of the biggest problems together, and make the world a place worth living in for us and future generations.

• Video recording of the Sustainability Lecture: http://timms.uni-tuebingen.de/Player/PlayerFlow/UT_20171130_001_nachhalttag_000

Ursula Sladek

Key note speaker of the evening was a businesswoman and energy expert: Ursula Sladek, co-founder of the Elektrizitätswerke Schönau and award winner of the German Environment Prize 2013. She gave the Sustainability Lecture on „Die Herausforderungen der Energiewende in Deutschland“.

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• Video recording of the Sustainability Lecture: Sustainability Lecture 2016 (German)

Thomas Jorberg

Thomas Jorberg, executive spokesman of the GLS-Bank, gave the „Sustainability Lecture“ 2015 with the title "Das Ende von Banken, wie wir sie kannten. Nachhaltigkeit im Finanzsektor?". The Sustainability Lecture as well as the award ceremony took place on Friday 27 November 2015.

• Video of the Sustainability Lecture 2015 (German)

Prof. Dr. Angelika Zahrnt

The Sustainability Lecture 2014 was given by Prof. Dr. Angelika Zahrnt, economist and honorary president of the BUND. The title of the lecture was "Was kommt nach dem Wirtschaftswachstum?". The Sustainability Lecture as well as the award ceremony took place on Friday 28 November 2014.

• Video of the award ceremony and the Sustainability Lecture 2014 (German)

Ministerin Theresia Bauer (MdL)

On 29 November 2013, the Sustainability Lecture was given by Mrs Ministerin Theresia Bauer MdL. The title of the lecture was "Wissen schafft Nachhaltigkeit - die Rolle der Wissenschaft auf dem Weg in die nachhaltige Gesellschaft".

• The Sustainabilty Lecture 2013 by Minister Theresia Bauer (MdL).

Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker

In 2012, the internationally renowned environment expert Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker gave the Tübingen Sustainability Lecture. Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, who is committed to scientific and socio-political issues all over the world, had been elected as Co-President of the in that year. Among numerous other functions, he worked as Director of the in Bonn, as President of the and as a member of the German Bundestag in the course of his career. He is a pioneer of the idea of sustainability and addressed the topic of intergenerational justice in his speech. The title of the Sustainability Lecture was: "Was schulden die Alten den Jungen?

• Excerpts from the speech (Source: Uniradio Tübingen)