Climate Change and the Long-Term Future

After several successful installments, the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Groningen will host its yearly Winter School, aimed primarily at advanced undergraduate students and early-stage graduate students. The theme of the Winter School this year is Climate Change and the Long-Term Future. It will consist of 6 lecture tutorials where topics related to the theme will be discussed from different disciplinary viewpoints: Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). Unlike previous winter schools, this year’s winter school will be held online because of ongoing epidemiological uncertainties.

Theme

Climate change is among the biggest challenges humanity faces today. How should individuals, societies, and humanity at large respond to climate change and other long-term challenges? Far from being a question for the natural sciences alone, a good answer also requires a ‘PPE perspective’, that is, a perspective that combines philosophy, politics, and economics. In this winter school, different researchers will take a PPE perspective in exploring climate change and our ethical and political obligations towards future people. The challenge is typically seen as a collective action problem. From this perspective, it calls for an institutional solution that facilitates widespread cooperation among individuals and countries. And it brings up empirical questions, such as what explains people’s attitudes and actions towards the environment and future generations and how can those be improved? But it also has an important epistemic dimension. For example, what is a rational response to scientific disagreement and to the risk and uncertainty involved in climate predictions? Finally, the winter school also tackles fundamental normative questions, such as: What are our moral obligations to future people? Do they extend to all future people and, if so, does this imply that our longtermist moral duties trump any short-term concerns?

Programme

• Dr Jan-Willem Bolderdijk , ‘ Why our green intentions don't (yet) translate to green consumer choices ’
• Prof Leah Henderson , ‘The philosophy of climate science’
• Prof Lisa Herzog , ‘Climate Science and Democracy – Considerations from Political Epistemology’
• Prof Frank Hindriks , ‘Sustainable institutions and a duty to join forces’
• Dr Simon Friederich , ‘ Climate change as a collective action problem and the importance of very cheap energy’
• Dr. Andreas T. Schmidt , ’Longtermism and our duty towards far-future people’

The winter school is aimed at advanced undergraduate students and early-stage graduate students. It also offers students interested in studying the PPE Master in Groningen an insight into the kinds of teaching and research done at the PPE Centre.

Dates

January 31 – February 1^st 2022

Registration

To register, send us an email, letting us know your name, affiliation, and what you study (which subject and whether you are an undergraduate or graduate) to j.h.van.strien ‘at’ rug.nl with 'Registration for winter school' as subject, no later than January 5th, 2022. Depending on registration numbers, we will give preference to advanced undergraduate students.

Registration deadline: January 5th, 2022

More information

Further inquiries can be directed to j.h.van.strien rug.nl