Community energy
With this book the BEACON team seeks to convey the spirit of European collaboration and exchange on climate change to a wider audience of school children and adults alike. We hope this book will encourage readers to get to know other European realities and climate action efforts and thereby make a small contribution to the transition to a climate neutral world.
The book follows characters Sofia and her younger brother Gabriel from their home in Portugal on a train journey across Europe. On this trip Sofia seeks to gather information and ideas for a game that she is developing about climate change. Her brother is along for the ride to have fun and explore. They come across different landscapes, countries, and people on their trip, and learn how communities across Europe are coming together to fight climate change. Their first-hand experiences reinforce their understanding that climate change is complex and real, but that individuals, communities and cities can make a big difference in mitigating and adapting to it. In the end Sofia knows how her game must work, not as a competition but as a cooperative game, because climate change is a challenge for each and every one of us, and only together are we able to tackle it.
On their trip the siblings learn about energy efficiency in Paris; forest fires in Greece and Portugal; draughts and water scarcity in central Europe; how students are learning about energy consumption in Romanian schools; the integration of renewable energies in Germany and Portugal and much more.
