Beginning to End the Climate Crisis – A History of Our Future

Luisa Neubauer is one of the co-organizers of Fridays for Future and is the most prominent representative of the German movement. She is the host of the Spotify Original Podcast 1,5 Grad (1.5 degrees). Alexander Repenning is a comprehensivist, facilitator, and writer engaged in climate justice. He is currently working as an education manager at Right Livelihood, connecting activism and academia and creating learning formats for system change. Sabine von Mering is professor of German and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies and director of the Center for German and European Studies at Brandeis University. She is a core member of the Environmental Studies Program and a longtime climate activist with 350Mass and NoCoalNoGas.

“Beginning to End the Climate Crisis acknowledges the challenge of affecting long-term change, but says that it’s important to keep trying.”

• ForewordNote from the Translator Preface to the English EditionIntroduction?Alarmism? Hamburg 2050?What Does the Science Say??Let’s Stop Making the Same Mistakes Over and Over Again?We Are Possibilists?An Invitation1 Our Future is a Dystopia?The Future Is No Longer a Promise?Our Lives in a Multi-Optional World?We Are Part of the Problem?Nauru - The Canary in the Coalmine2 Because You Are Stealing Our Future?A Scientifically-Founded Fear of the Future ?This Crisis Could Have Been Prevented?Not a Brave New World as We Like It?A Global Question and a Globalized Generation?Humanity Has a Deadline?Who is Stealing Our Future??The First Steps of a Marathon3 We Lack a Utopia?The End of History??No Planet B?Lack of Imagination?An Apollo-Project to Combat the Climate Crisis4 The Climate Crisis is Not an Individual Crisis?The Luxury of Riding a Bicycle?Green Guilt?Shifting Baselines5 The Climate Crisis is a Crisis of Responsibility?Demanding Responsibility for the Future?The Parable of Mourning the Future?Institutionalizing Responsibility for the Future 6 The Climate Crisis is a Crisis of Communication?This is Your Crisis, Too?A Problem of Vividness??Frames Instead of Facts?Calculated Uncertainty?Beyond Our Imagination?The Climate of the Media?How Do We Get Out of It?7 The Climate Crisis is a Crisis of Fossil Capitalism?The Fateful Belief in the Market?A Price Tag on Nature is Supposed to Save Us. Seriously??The First Time as Tragedy, the Second Time as Farce8 The Climate Crisis is a Crisis of Prosperity?But We Are Doing So Well, Aren’t We??We Are Living at the Expense of Others?Voluntary Self-Deprivileging?Donut for Future?The ‘Good Life’ as a Constitutional Goal??For a Green New Deal9 The Climate Crisis is a Crisis of Justice ?The Price of Fossil Prosperity?Intergenerational Justice?Carbon Justice?A Sexist Crisis?Who is Being Held Accountable??The New Social Question?10 Educate Yourselves!?The Gap Between Knowledge, Perception, and Action1.Educate Yourselves about How to Educate Others2.Tell the Truth, the Whole Truth3.Educate (Yourselves) about the Beginning of the End4.Become Multipliers5.Educate Yourselves about Each Other11 Start Dreaming!1.Moral Stretching Exercises2.Looking Back from the Dystopian Future3.Imagine!4.Think Utopian12 Get Organized!?Sorry, I Don’t Have Time to Protest?Why Organize??3.5 Percent1.Discover the Why2.Get Over Your Astonishment3.Team Up and Look Out for Each Other4.Copy from Each Other5.Come to Stay6.Make Demands of Those Around YouEpilogueAcknowledgements