Speaker
Description
Democracies face a dual challenge. On the one hand, democratic institutions are increasingly under pressure from authoritarian, right-wing populist, and extremist actors. On the other hand, socio-ecological transformation in response to climate change requires decisive action, social solidarity, and trust in democratic institutions. These processes are intertwined: ecological crises - particularly extreme weather events - may foster democratic resilience but can also intensify authoritarian backlash, thereby undermining transformation efforts. Given that the entire scientific enterprise has come under attack, the question is what role should or could academics play to fight the backlash and to resist the onslaught on intellectualism and facts?Here we analyse the status quo. What has the academic response to Trumpism and authoritarianism been so far? How do we deal with bad-faith actors and how are we identifying them to begin with? How do we change our way to communicate and embrace said challenge? How do we regain ground, get organised and bring about the necessary discomfort? In order to understand the dynamics, we dissect critical factors such as emotions, biases, neurological and psychological disorders. We discuss social shifts from a current and historical perspective. We shed light on the role of the media (legacy as well as social media). And ultimately, we offer solutions for how to communicate more effective and goal-oriented. In a climate as well as societal context.'
About:
Karsten is a Research Associate at the Meteorological Institute of Leipzig University. He is linking extreme weather events, biodiversity loss and human-induced climate change. One key question he is trying to answer is to what extent the observed changes are attributable to anthropogenic causes. For example, he helped developing the rapid event attribution framework, now widely known as World Weather Attribution. He also has a keen interest in climate change communication and is currently involved in a project which aims at accelerating the transfer of science knowledge into society.
