“Rising inequality risks regional collapse and climate catastrophe,” claims the headline on the website of Club of Rome. The international think tank, known for its influential bestseller The Limits to Growth, warned as early as 1972 of the impending overburdening of our planet. Since then, it has been campaigning for a sustainable future for humanity. With their new publication “Earth4All: A Survival Guide for Humanity,” experts from more than 30 different countries present the results from their latest research project, which involved leading scientists, economists and a team of system dynamics computer modelers. They present “five extraordinary turnarounds” to achieve prosperity for all within planetary limits in a single generation.
„Something very uncomfortable and hard to digest is the fact, that the GDP growth goes strictly with a growth of CO2 emissions. Isn’t that embarrassing? – It is!“.
Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, environmental scientist, politician, and former co-president of the Club of Rome
The German environmental scientist and politician Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker is a former co-president of the Club of Rome. At the Ars Electronica Festival 2022, he and Till Kellerhoff, Club of Rome program director and manager of the Earth4All Initiative, were our guests here in Linz. With his astute analyses of the current system, he has at the latest then also convinced our festival visitors of the finitude of our growth-oriented economy that promotes social inequality. It would still be conceivable to stabilize global warming below 2°C. The future of humanity would depend above all on five preconditions: ending poverty, empowering women as well as eliminating glaring inequality, building a healthy food system for people and ecosystems and moving clearly toward clean energy.
Admitted: Ambitious goals that we must achieve together now for our future on this planet indeed fast. – But it is not impossible!
“Without addressing inequality, we won’t be able to succeed.”
Till Kellerhoff, Club of Rome program director and manager of the Earth4All initiative
From the different perspectives of Jayati Ghosh, development economist and professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts (IN), Astrid Rössler, environmental spokesperson of the Green Club in parliament (AT) and Maria Langsenlehner, project manager of the Umweltdachverband (DE), the topic is subsequently reflected in the panel discussion Earth4All – A Survival Guide for Humanity. Friedrich Hinterberger, vice president of the Club of Rome (AT), leads the discussion.
“I really appreciate the frustration and the exhaustion. But I truly believe that yes, we can!”
Jayati Ghosh, development economist, professor of economics at University of Massachusetts
Earth4All: Survival Guide for the Humanity, and the captivating keynote by Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker were presented at Futurelab Day, September 8, in Lecture Hall 1 at Johannes Kepler University. You missed this outstanding event? We recorded it for you to broadcast it here once again. Only if everyone joins, we can still get this turn!