Learning Hub 2023 kicks off soon

We will shortly be launching our new summer series of Learning Hub events! For this series of the Learning Hub, we will be exploring issues around energy poverty and energy pollution as well as looking at the intersection of climate change and increasing digitalisation and the demand for data centres.

 

Our first Learning Hub webinar this year will take place on Monday, the 26th of June, from 7-8:30 pm. We’ll be delving into issues around the role of digital infrastructure in transforming our energy system. We will be joined on the night by two inspiring speakers Patrick Bresnihan - lecturer in the Department of Geography at Maynooth University, and Patrick Brodie - media scholar and Assistant Professor/Ad Astra Fellow in the School of Information and Communication Studies at University College Dublin. They will guide us through some of the complexities of building a sustainable energy future whilst avoiding a data centre lock-in to fossil gas infrastructure and economy, drawing on local to global contexts and examples of resistance. 

After this, we will invite participants to join us for a participatory and interactive workshop on Monday 3rd of July from 7:30 - 8 pm to dig deeper into these emerging issues around data centres and climate change and to explore how we can mobilise support for alternative energy futures, that are more sustainable and orientated towards the common good. And we’ll try to connect our collective learning to collective action!

Speaker Bios 

Patrick Bresnihan

• Patrick Bresnihan is a lecturer in the Department of Geography at Maynooth University. He has over fifteen years of experience researching and teaching environmental governance and green political economy in Ireland and abroad. His research has examined different but related environmental topics, including agriculture and land-use, data centres and energy, and water pollution and infrastructure. He has published multiple books and academic articles on these topics, policy reports, talks and opinion pieces.

Patrick Brodie

• Patrick Brodie is a media scholar and Assistant Professor/Ad Astra Fellow in the School of Information and Communication Studies at University College Dublin. His research focuses on the environmental impacts of digital infrastructures like data centres, focusing on their role within energy systems, modes of material extraction, and rural development. He has published widely in academic and popular venues and co-edits the Journal of Environmental Media.

About the Learning Hub

The Learning Hub was developed as part of our commitment to a process of learning and unlearning about the systems of power and oppression that influence our lives and the world around us. Through the Learning Hub we have aimed to build a critical understanding of climate justice issues and issues that intersect with climate change through webinar style talks and development education workshops which examine root causes and impacts of global climate justice issues. Through our last Learning Hub series we reached participants from 26 counties across Ireland (North and South). We have seen the effective impact of the two-prong learning process our Learning Hub has taken with many participants who have been reached through webinars joining us to delve deeper into participatory workshops and taking action.

Over the past two years we have successfully delivered 16 online events - comprised of 8 webinars and 8 follow up participatory workshops. We explored themes of climate justice, migrant justice, just transition, eco anxiety, movement building, energy poverty and energy and gas.

The Learning Hub is part of our wider Educational programme funded through Irish Aid and involves many different strands of work orientated around global citizenship education and  includes community education work, youth education and empowerment, and targeted workshops.

We will be opening registration for the Learning Hub Summer Series 2023 very soon so keep an eye on your inbox as well as our events section of our website for more details on how you can register.

We really hope you can join us for these events! In the meantime, you can watch recordings from some of the events in our last Learning Hub Series here. It is thanks to Irish Aid that we are able to fund this Learning Hub as part of our Global Citizenship Education programme.