DCU Office of the COO header
Office of the Chief Operations Officer

MPCW | Sustainability

Making the Post Carbon World

                                  Not optimism, not pessimism but realism

 Corrie Mountain Wind Farm, Co. Leitrim, image credit: RTG - CC BY-SA 4.0]

Corrie Mountain Wind Farm, Co. Leitrim, image credit: RTG - CC BY-SA 4.0

This is a new pilot live online conversation aiming to empart an understaning of why and how we might make a post carbon world.  MPCW is a free, open-access, online course offered by DCU School of Electronic Engineering in collaboration with the DCU Sustainable Economies and Societies Hub, DCU Sustainable Campus, and the United Nations Dublin Regional Centre of Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development (RCE Dublin, hosted by DCU).

Click Here to go to the MPCW-16 on LOOP 

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE!

MPCW is "extra-curricular", i.e. not for credit. There is no formal assessment, no grade, it will not count for any DCU academic award, and will not appear on any DCU transcript of results.

And with that out of the way: MPCW is intended to provide a concentrated, stimulating, whirlwind tour of some of the biggest issues now facing global human civilization, and give participants some essential tools to play an active, empowered role in changing our shared world for the better!

"Not optimism, not pessimism, but realism."

MPCW gives a high level overview of the challenges posed to global humanity by human-caused climate change in particular, but also considers overshoot of other biophysical "planetary boundaries". It then provides for facilitated exploration of how we can respond (individually and collectively) by actively working to make the transition to secure, just, democratic and authentically sustainable post-carbon societies.

Your MPCW hosts/facilitators are:

 

The format is a series of 10 week-long "online conversations". We start each Friday by providing a small set of key online resources on a specific topic, via a dedicated loop online forum created for that week. These resources will provide the focus and context for all our discussions through to the following Friday. The first part of the week (from Friday to Wednesday afternoon) is an opportunity for participants to review, comment, and post questions about the target resources. Then, each Wednesday evening from 6.45pm-7.45pm (Dublin local time) we will have a live webinar event, in which the facilitators will consider the state of the online discussion so far, invite live questions and comments, and suggest further directions for research and debate. (While all participants are encouraged to join all the live webinars, they will also be recorded for later "on demand" viewing.) The discussion then continues in the weekly loop forum until it wraps up on Friday, when we transition to the following week's cycle.

This is a dynamic, "participant-driven" course. While we have a "menu" of specific topics and resources in mind, there will be opportunities for participants to propose specific directions or additional areas that could be dynamically included as the course unfolds.

Week 1 of MPCW-16 starts on Friday, 5th February 2016. Do please join us for what promises to be an exciting and enjoyable learning experience for all concerned!

If you have immediate general questions about the course - e.g., if you have not used loop before etc. - then please post your query on the"HELP!" forum and we'll do our best to respond.

 

 

Here is some background/thought provoking videos

"Does COP21 go far enough to tackle climate change? Duncan Stewart speaks with Barry McMullin"

 Part 1 and Part 2

Climate Change is simple ... - David Roberts

Fossil free Ireland | Dr Cara Augustenborg | TEDxUCD

 

 

 

 

 

More info to follow

 

Contact details : sustainability@dcu.ie