Course: Climate and Energy: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

Day 1  The ferry to Utö is called Silverpilen (“the silver arrow”), perhaps because silver was among the metals that have been mined on the island since Viking times. The …

This massive online open course (MOOC) was created by a multinational team of educators from across Europe while gathered together on a small island called Utö which is situated in …

Donatella Magri, Associate Professor at Sapienza University explores the role of climate as a driver of biodiversity loss during the past 2.6 million years. She explains the stages of biodiversity …

Next to a hut in Uto, we learn that renewable energies will play a key role in this energy transition, and that three sources of sustainable electricity production stand out …

Stepping by a wood pile close to a hut, Juan reflects on how human societies have used energy along history, and the signature this has left on Nature. Forests changed …

Ultimately, the extension of the production of renewable electricity is an unstoppable process, with guaranteed technical and economic success, and which in the medium term can allow a significant reduction …

Knowledge of the effects of solar plants on biodiversity is even more limited than in the previous cases, although there is evidence that their effect may be relevant due to …

Wind power plants possibly represent the icon of the energy transition, due to the majesty of their windmills and their ability to produce large amounts of electricity. Wind power plants …

The production of electricity in hydroelectric plants has more than a century of history, has very well-developed technologies and dominates renewable energy production; but it begins to be an energy …

The boring billion was followed by Snowball Earth. The equatorial position of the continents and rise of a mountain belt that straddled the equator created a “perfect storm” for global …

Electrical energy represents only a fraction of the total energy consumption of human beings, but its magnitude continues to grow for two reasons: the general increase in energy consumption of …

The Proterozoic Eon began 2.5 billion years ago. Its name means “early life” but we now know that life existed long before the start of this eon. This eon starts …

In a paper entitled Age of the Earth which was published in Science in 1955, Clair Patterson and colleagues estimated that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Their estimate …

Heat pumps (HPs) are a technology that ought to have a central place in the European energy policies. In the current energy crisis, with unprecedented energy prices caused mainly by …

Moreno Di Marco, Research Fellow at Sapienza University explores extinction risk from climate change. He looks at future scenarios framed in the context of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) which …