2022 saw the publication of a new report aiming to wake up society. Entitled Earth For All. A Survival Guide for Our Planet, this report was the subject of a panel discussion and workshop hosted by a working group led by biologist Henner Hollert, educationalist Helge Kminek, and philosophers Darrel Moellendorf, Philipp Schink, and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann in May 2023.

A public discussion of Earth For All was held at Goethe University’s Normative Orders Research Center on May 8, 2023. Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) presented the report, followed by a panel discussion involving social and natural scientists.

From left to right: Flurina Schneider (chair, Institute for Social-Ecological Research), Barbara Brandl (sociologist, Goethe University), Darrel Moellendorf (philosopher, Goethe University), Ricarda Winkelmann (climate researcher, PIK), Tobias Tröger (jurist, Goethe University), Jonathan Donges (climate modeler, PIK). Not pictured is PIK director Johan Rockström, who joined the discussion online. (photo: private)

The following day, the working group continued the discussion with the co-authors of the report, Jonathan Donges and Ricarda Winkelmann (both PIK), and other participants in a workshop at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften.

They first looked at the report’s data basis and asked how the models were generated on the basis of which the report develops various future scenarios and derives radical imperatives for a socio-ecological transformation of global society. For example, the report calls for five major »U-turns«: ending poverty, eliminating inequality, empowering women, building a food system that is healthy for people and ecosystems, and the widespread use of clean energy.

The participants then discussed how these demands might be implemented. What social, economic, political, and global coalitions must be brought to bear? How can people be won over to measures that will change their lives? What do such measures mean for the countries of the global South, whose poverty is largely due to the prosperity of the industrialized nations? What would »climate justice« mean in this context? And finally: Is there hope for our planet?

Appropriately »Hope in Times of Crisis« was also the topic of an interdisciplinary conference hosted just a few weeks later by the Sigmund Freud Institute Frankfurt in cooperation with the ConTrust cluster initiative and the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften.