Where's the Beach? Engineers have an answer!

In my research of best practices in climate change and sustainability education and policy in Greece, there are two projects I would like to feature as inspirational, and great hands-on problem solving opportunities for students, and communities.

Where's the Beach?

What most folks see in the photos from the island of Lefkada on this page is evidence of why it is one of the most popular destination islands in the Ionian Sea. Miles of long, quiet sandy beaches, some of the best water/wind sports locations in the world, and a remarkably cute downtown area with lots of local shops attract thousands of Greek and European tourists each year. With calm inland harbors, it is a destination for recreational sailboats of all sizes exploring the Ionian coast. It is not surprising that tourism and related industries is the primary source of income for a majority of the island's 23,000 residents. 

However, for students at the 1st Technical High School of Lefkada  of Mr. Gerassimos Anagnostopoulos's Climate Detectives club, in these same pictures they see evidence of the impacts of climate change, and threats to the long term sustainability of the island. The Climate Detectives is a collaboration with the European Union, which encourages student clubs to explore local issues, and then provides high level data to help them understand the problem. What these students see in these photos, particularly over time, is that the beaches are shifting, eroding in one place, and extending in another. In addition, the erosion of the sea side beaches has led to damage to the roads to reach these areas. Lastly, as seas levels rise, these students are tracking the potential of flooding, which could significantly impact Lefkada Town, which barely rises two meters above sea level.

Using satellite data provided by the European Space Agency, as well as local municipal data showing sea level, these students tracked a pattern of thousands of tons of sand shifting from Northwest beaches up and around the northern tip of the island and ending up being deposited directly in front of the 50 meter wide deep channel that brings thousands of recreational sailboats each year. 

Led by Mr. Anagnostopoulos each year, the Climate Detectives club works to identify and analyze issues facing their community. I was impressed with the level of understanding these students had when I interviewed them about this year's project. The shifting sands problems threatens to have serious impacts to Lefkada. However, they also recognize the significant engineering challenge to solving the problem, whether by relocating tons of sand, or creating new infrastructure. 

I feature the Climate Detectives project because it is simply such a rich lesson. It checks all the boxes for relevance, sustainable development, and for my research project they're using math as a tool to understand threats to their own lives. Bravo!!

Incubating Transition

The second project scales this high school lesson up significantly, rigorously investigating problems facing communities due to climate change, and acting as an incubator for innovative solutions with ambitious goals. The CLuBe project,(Cluster of Bioeconomy and Environment of Western Macedonia))is based in the northern Greece town of Kozani, which is the center of a coal mining and burning economy that is rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels. I first came across CluBe at the Skyros Academy, where their education director Valentina Plaka presented her work in Kozani, one of 100 cities in the EU committed to climate neutrality by 2030.

This ambitious goal of a relatively rapid transition has seen many of their coal power plants shuttered in the last five years, while many of the surrounding hills are now coated with solar panels like icing on cake. CluBe has been there from the beginning, acting as a catalyst for good ideas, and to bring sustainable energy dollars from international partners to the region. 

I sat in on a CLUBe conference on building the Bioeconomy, where entrepreneurs and EU funders had a chance to meet to find the best ways to bring sustainable industry to scale. I was impressed at the exciting projects in the room, from bio-plastics, to natural erosion control, to vertical farming, to closed loop manufacturing processes, great ideas in sustainability were represented.

I also met with mechanical engineer Vasileios Balachtsis, Deputy Head of Sustainable and Intelligent Transition Department with CluBe in Kozani, where he and a team of young engineers are putting research behind some of the most innovative ideas in sustainability, like getting hydrogen storage to scale. CLuBe has over 30 projects like this, and has grown from a few leaders, to a building full of mostly young engineers incubating new ideas, working with both business, and government to bring sustainable ideas from the drawing board, to communities.

In many of my interviews with students here in Greece, when I ask them if they are optimistic about the future, given the challenges of climate change, many of the glass half full students point to technology. Many students have faith that human ingenuity will help us engineer new climate solutions. If that happens here in Greece, it will be because of organizations like CluBe in Kozani, and staffed by students like the Climate Detectives I met in Lefkada. These are models for helping students, and policy makers understand the choices and challenges presented by climate change.