Green Summer University 2017 in Puszczykowo

For the third time, thanks to the Green European Foundation and the Heinrich Boell Foundation Representative Office in Warsaw, we were able to organise a Green Summer University, this time in Puszczykowo near Poznań, in the buffer zone of the picturesque Wielkopolska National Park, full of forests and waters. The title of ZLU 2016, ‘Hope and cope’, captures the idea with which the programme of the third Summer Green Meeting was created: the challenges are many, but our role is to exchange knowledge and acquire skills to find the best answers, with the hope that we will be able to use them to change for the better the reality around us, which is often difficult. This applies at all levels – from the lowest local level in our cities, i.e. the settlements, to the neighbourhoods, cities and municipalities, and finally the regions, the national level and the European level. On many issues, it is inevitable that the EU level will not be enough, as the world has become a ‘global village’ and the Green motto ‘think globally, act locally’ can no longer be ignored.

In the year leading up to local government elections and in the year in which the Green Zone Foundation joined the Association of Associations of the Congress of Urban Movements, it is not surprising that we have devoted a large part of the programme to local government and urban issues. Firstly, we gain knowledge from experienced Green experts: Hanna Gill-Piątek, Wojciech Makowski, Lech Mergler are unquestionable authorities whose knowledge and experience we will certainly make use of. We regret that illness did not allow Wojciech Kłossowski to attend ZLU, his knowledge of local government, both theoretical and practical, would have been of great value to us. We look forward to a repeat in 2018. In addition to sessions of pre-election lectures, debates and workshops on provincial assemblies or estate councils, there were also thematic meetings on selected urban policy issues. ZLU also went from Puszczykowo to Poznan, where we organised, in partnership with the Congress of Urban Movements , a public debate on urban democracy and progressive cities, with the participation of Poznan Mayor Jacek Jaskowiak, expert urban activist women and (or simultaneously) green politicians.

For several years we have been reflecting on how to deal with the crisis and pathologies of global capitalism, the widespread financialisation of everything and all areas of life, including education, health and even nature. We are looking for alternatives to the global neoliberalism of free trade agreements, corporations out of social control, efforts to push environmental standards and people’s rights to the lowest possible common denominator in favour of the increasingly wealthy elites of global business and politics. It is an extremely dangerous game that only ostensibly raises people’s living standards, but de facto threatens all of humanity due to rapid, uncontrolled climate change, depletion of non-renewable resources, mass extinction of species, massive pollution of the living environment and a water crisis.

At the second ZLU there was talk of Common Good theory and post-growth. Now it is time to grapple with the debate about economics taking place in Green think-tanks and parties. What answers do Green thinkers and practitioners give, what positive and negative experiences do they build their beliefs and programmes on, what academic authorities inspire them. A partner of the seminar “Green Economy at ZLU 2017” was the Representative Office of the Heinrich Boell Foundation in Warsaw. We hosted two HBS representatives: Lili Fuhr, co-author (with Thomas Fatheuer and Barbara Unmußig) of the book ‘Inside the Green Economy’, and Klaus Linsenmeier, Director of the HBS Representation in the European Union, a veritable mine of Green knowledge and experience. Klaus chaired the plenary debate “Will the green free market economy avoid a global catastrophe?”, which was preceded by an introductory lecture by Lucile Schmid , representing the Green European Foundation and the French Fondation de l’Ecologie Politique, presenting the different directions of Green economic thought. Other participants in the debate included Karolina Safarzyńska, PhD, from the University of Warsaw, an economist researching, among other things, the economics of climate change, Ewa Charkiewicz from the Feminist Think-tank, who pointed out among others, on the economics of care, neglected in classical economics, Krzysztof Lewandowski, who exposed the pathologies of a system in which money is virtual and its creation has been delegated by the state to private banks through the credit system, and finally Piotr Barczak of the EEB spoke about the hopes placed in the closed loop economy. The economics seminar also included discussion and workshop sessions: the first was conducted by Piotr Barczak, Tomasz Wojciechowski from the IGOZ and Julia Rokicka from the Biorecycling Association and concerned the closed loop economy (the so-called GOZ), while the second session dealt with practical applications of the so-called Economy of the Common Good, i.e. cooperativism, co-operatives and other forms of social and solidarity economy. Jakub Rok outlined the practical aspects of the operation of the ‘Well’ food co-operative in Warsaw, while Anna Krenz and Katarzyna Ugryn introduced the topic of cooperatives and energy communities. Few people know that the pioneers of modern windmills are the Danes, and that the first windmill was built by a small community themselves in the 1970s. In addition, a workshop on money and the search for a ‘Plan B’, i.e. a sovereign currency, led by Krzysztof Lewandowski and Jan Chudzyński, was of great interest. All ZLU participants received a special issue of Green News dedicated to economics, in its alternative versions to the classical, dominant school of today.

Of course, the Green Summer University, organised by the Green European Foundation (GEF), had to have a European dimension. Hence the opening plenary debate “Europe after Brexit. Will a green transition still be possible?”, as part of the GEF’s international project on the initiative of the British think-tank Green House. The European dimension was also ensured by our guests – both from the EU level: from the GEF, the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament or the European Green Party, as well as from other European countries: from the UK, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Ukraine.

As one of the campaigns supported by the Green Zone Foundation is about opposing plans for the development of international river shipping in Poland, and these plans are linked to the EU mega transport investments that the Greens in the European Parliament are fighting against, the Green Zone Foundation has joined the Save the Rivers Coalition. Hence the plenary debate on these and other, in our opinion very harmful and completely unjustified, mega transport projects. This debate included the very distinguished Russian environmental and nature conservation activist Evgenya Chirikov, who introduced us to the little-known behind-the-scenes of the Nord Stream 2 project.

The roundtable ‘Europe as a space for ecology’, chaired by Edouard Gaudot of the Green/EFA Group in the European Parliament and Ewa Sufin-Jacquemart, brought together many Greens and activists committed to defending the environment and nature. In this debate, we drew attention, among other things, to the inconsistencies of European policies when, on the one hand, regulations are introduced for the protection of nature and the environment and, on the other hand, mega-investments and rules of competition and free trade are financed which favour the great degradation of supposedly protected nature. The capacity of the European Parliament to fight this battle is limited, and that of MEPs from the Greens/EFA group is even less able to build majority coalitions for nature protection measures when such protection clashes with potential job-creating investments. There were other topics at the third Green Summer University, e.g. we hosted the Lodz ‘Dziewuchy Dziewuchom’, who prepared a session on the fight for women’s rights and the accompanying political activism of women. We will also be talking about climate change, the most important topic for all people. In addition to an information and workshop session on the subject, we were honoured by a visit from a prominent climate change expert and researcher, Professor Zbigniew Kundzewicz, who works with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Important events were meetings with the inhabitants of Puszczykowo – already on the first day we were welcomed by activists from the “Nasze Puszczykowo” association, thanks to whom we found out about the problems of this beautiful town in the middle of a forest.
o city-garden, threatened by urbanisation plans and the development of infrastructure for through transport. On the last day, we had a small meeting with Puszczykowo residents at the Fiedler Museum, where we discussed global and local responsibility.
The ecological theme of our morning and/or evening nature expeditions was the ecosystems of rivers, lakes and wetlands, but there was also a trip to nearby Rogalin, where the oak trees are named after them, several hundred years old and several metres in circumference each, and where we listened to bats, about which we learned a great deal from one of our eco-guides. In summary, the themes at the Green Summer University 2017 were EUROPE, ECONOMY, ECOLOGY, SELF-GOVERNANCE AND PROGRESSIVE CITIES, CLIMATE and WOMEN’S RIGHTS, the leading environmental theme was WATER ECOSYSTEMS , and the practical skills were (E)COMMUNICATION (we tried to provide live coverage of most sessions).
Photo reports: Zielona Ekonamia na ZLU 2017 ,  debata „Europa po Brexicie, czy transformacja w kierunku zrównoważonego rozwoju będzie wciąż mozliwa?” , Zielony Letni Uniwersytet 2017,  ZLU 2017 w przyrodzie