Kyung Hee University Peace BAR Festival

The Future Unhinged: Climate Justice for All

The warning bells of climate change are ringing louder than ever. The predictions have grown darker, with the global scientific community reaching a consensus that global warming poses an existential threat to humanity. UN experts and scientists have renewed their warnings from last year, reporting that an increase of global temperatures of 1.5°C above pre-industrial (pre-1850) levels would trigger extreme weather events, including intense heat waves, forest fires, droughts, floods, and rising sea levels. The onset of food and water shortages and the destruction of infrastructure, as well as new waves of refugees and disaster victims, would shake national security and social stability to the core. Scholars are in agreement that an increase of 2°C would unleash catastrophic consequences. Humankind and all other life forms on Earth would perish under the “Hothouse Earth” conditions, hastening what has been dubbed as the “sixth mass extinction.” As of August 2019, the global temperature has already increased 1.1° C over 1850 levels, and an alarming 1.75°C over the temperatures before 1750, an alternative starting point for the Industrial Revolution.

We have been warned time and time again of the need to address this crisis. In 1972, the Club of Rome published The Limits to Growth, a frank assessment of civilization’s future prospects. The report predicted that exponential economic growth would, given the linear growth of resources, reach its limit in the twenty - first century. Yet this warning fell largely on deaf ears, as we held fast to our infinite desires in defiance of a finite Earth. Our history had been governed by an expansionist myth that has fueled fierce competition and breakneck development, and we now face a threat of global proportions: civilization must either evolve or collapse.

Extreme weather has produced a veritable tsunami of data on climate change, and we are told that humanity now stands on the precipice of disaster, that we are running out of time, that we now have a real reason to be terrified. Urgent messages pouring forth from NGOs, religious institutions, global press outlets, and social media — not to mention scenes of what are unmistakably climate-driven disasters — all bear witness to an extremely precarious future. This is the future that lies in our hands: the situation calls for a paradigm shift from the expansive, competitive growth to sustainability; otherwise, the foundations of our very survival are threatened.

Young people around the world are demanding that the grown-ups must stop robbing them of their future and that politicians must pursue fundamental changes rather than cherry-picking short-term profits. The duty of safeguarding the future of our young generation falls upon all of us — scholars, journalists, social institutions, and the entire system of world politics itself.

PBF 2019 addresses the existential threat of climate-driven disasters facing us in this unprecedented age of anthropogenic climate change. By examining the trajectory of world history along with the histories of climate and civilization that led to our current crisis, we seek breakthroughs in the form of a radically new consciousness, discourse, political imagination, and narrative for the benefit of the next generation. Amid this civilizational crisis, PBF 2019 will undauntedly forge a path for new forms of reflection, exploration, and activism, all for the purpose of providing hope for the future.