Studium Generale: How We Sold Our Future

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? In How We Sold Our Future: The Failure to Fight Climate Change, sociologist Jens Beckert delves into the connections between capitalist structures and our failure to address the climate crisis. How do we stop selling our future for the next quarterly figures, the upcoming election result and today's pleasure?

In a short lecture Jens Beckert will share the key elements of this book, followed by a panel discussion with Marijke Leliveld and Lukas Linsi, moderated by Michael Schwan. These three academics take part in the Centre Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Members at the centre collaborate on various research programmes that aim to address some of the most urgent questions of our world, such as climate change, fiscal regulation, social and political trust, political participation and sustainable development.

Panel
Marijke Leliveld is a behavioral scientist and expert on morality and ethics within consumer and other stakeholder's behavior. Specifically, she studies topics like charity donations, cause-related marketing campaigns, sustainable consumer behavior in fashion, and other forms of prosocial or fairness related behavior and perceptions in for-profit and nonprofit organizations.

Lukas Linsi is an assistant professor in International Political Economy at the Faculty of Arts. His research addresses questions about corporate power, the structures of economic globalization and the politics of measurement and knowledge.

Michael Schwan is an assistant professor of Macro-finance and Sustainability at the Department of Global Economics and Management. His teaching and research focus on the political economy of finance, business power and institutional change. Among other things, he is interested in possibilities for achieving inclusive and sustainable political, social and economic development in advanced capitalist countries in an era of multiple crises and ruptures.