How We Sold Our Future: The Failure to Fight Climate Change

For decades, we have been aware of the risks of global warming. However, greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. How do we explain our failure to take the necessary measures to halt climate change? Why do societies hesitate to take any action in the face of the growing threat to us and our children?In this new and important book, Jens Beckert provides answers to these questions. Our apparent inability to implement basic measures to combat climate change stems from the nature of the power structures and incentives that influence businesses, politicians, voters, and consumers.Based on social science research, he argues that climate change is an inevitable consequence of the structures of capitalist modernity that have been developing for five hundred years. Our institutional and cultural arrangements operate at the expense of the destruction of the natural environment, and attempts to address global warming are often doomed to failure.Temperatures will continue to rise, and social and political conflicts will intensify. The tragic truth is that we have sold our future for the figures of the next quarter, the results of the next election, and the pleasures of today.