February 11 @ 18:00 - 19:00
For decades we have known about the dangers of global warming. Nevertheless, greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase. How can we explain our failure to take the necessary measures to stop climate change? Why are societies, despite the mounting threat to ourselves and our children, so reluctant to take action?
Jens Beckert, Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies and author of How We Sold Our Future: The Failure to Fight Climate Change, joins the Institute for Policy Research to discuss the answers to these questions.
Drawing on social science research, he argues that climate change is an inevitable product of the structures of capitalist modernity which have been developing for the past 500 years. Our institutional and cultural arrangements are operating at the cost of destroying the natural environment and attempts to address global warming are almost inevitably bound to fail. Temperatures will continue to rise, and social and political conflicts will intensify. The tragic truth is we are selling our future for the next quarterly figures, the upcoming election results, and today’s pleasure.
Online and free to attend.