Review: ‘How We Sold Our Future: The Failure to Fight Climate Change’ By Jens Beckert

German sociologist Jens Beckert, Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, has examined our global situation, applied his version of “considered realism,” and would like us to understand the facts. In How We Sold Our Future, available for the first time in English, readers can find a sober, rational assessment of what influences have impacted the world’s failure to address climate change, and what this means for our shared future.

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In this relatively compact volume, rather than focusing on geological or meteorological processes, Beckert takes on the topic from a social sciences point of view: what are the social, political, and economic drivers and structures that brought us to this point?

The book opens with a stark truth: “The broader public has known that destruction was coming for close to forty years; we have not stopped it.” The Club of Rome published The Limits to Growth in 1972. Meanwhile, in order to meet the agreed climate targets, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s most authoritative scientific body on climate change, says that global emissions would have to be halved by 2030, and reduced by 85% by 2050. This is quite simply not happening. 

The author then examines each of the social and political structures responsible for and affected by the situation, beginning with “capitalist modernity,” the role of Big Oil, the State, and consumers. The book also assesses the promises and performance of green growth (and its alternative, degrowth) and touches on what is likely to happen next.

In the early chapters, the author gives a short history of capitalism and the exploitation of subjugated populations, and how they “define the way we interact with nature.” While several industries are mentioned, Big Oil gets its own chapter due to its central position in the crisis and in the global economy in general. “The profits of the fossil fuel industry are so vast they are of geostrategic political importance,” the author reminds us. Meanwhile, although the International Energy Agency declared as recently as 2021 that no new oil reserves could be opened and 40% of existing ones had to remain in the ground, Big Oil has paid no attention to either of these directives. 

From there, the book asks why neither the “Hesitant State” nor billions of consumers have acted, as well as the role that developing economies play. Again, the explanations are structural and interlinked. From the revolving door of politicians and oil executives – former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former US President Dick Cheney, and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (who lobbied for Russian gas interests after leaving office) to the European farmers who protest against curtailing livestock, massive efforts go towards maintaining the status quo. The author recalls George H.W. Bush’s statement at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro: “The American way of life is non-negotiable,” and highlights the role of consumption as a social status marker. Even European voters hesitate to embrace climate protection, asking, “What will happen to my house?” Wind farms in my vineyard and cycle paths in my car lane are a problem for residents; nature, on the other hand, has no political voice.

At its midpoint, the book makes an excellent deep dive into the inequality of global prosperity, and the implications for the climate. On one hand, economist Walt Rostow’s prediction of economic “take-off” for developing countries has not come to pass; but high birth rates and exploitation of their natural resources mean their greenhouse gas emissions are still increasing. Asia in particular is in focus: one billion air conditioners will be sold by the end of the decade in Asia alone; China has the most advanced renewable energy program in the world, but is still increasing its fossil fuel consumption. 

Although the book is clear, organised, and blunt, it is in no way bland. Summary sentences are simple and devastating: “The institutional structures of capitalist economies are designed for unlimited expansion” and “The extremely inequitable global economic system is ultimately stacked against the protection of ecosystems that are vital for the entire world.” Only occasionally does the author stray into poetry, speaking of the “colonialist forked tongue” or the “massive hypocrisy” of the oil industry, or musing, “We have all become energy junkies.”

Throughout the book, the reader can refer to plain, uncomplicated charts and graphs that support the author’s assertions. Every time it seems that the author has made a too-bold claim (that voluntary carbon offsetting is tantamount to greenwashing, for example), he is right there with incontrovertible facts to back it up.

In some areas, this is a work of philosophy. In the final chapter, for example, it asks what it means to act wisely and morally in the face of the knowledge presented in the previous chapters. There is no easy answer. “This much is clear: in the coming decades, we will suffer from further significant global warming. The effects will be considerable, they will be global, and they will be unevenly distributed both among countries and within societies.” Three billion people will need to live in, or migrate from, areas uninhabitable for the human organism. 

If there is good news, it is that climate change, and climate adaptation, are not either-or issues, but more-or-less issues. And even the latter is not just for engineers: by understanding the social underpinnings of our current situation, we open the door to solutions for the future.

How We Sold Our Future: The Failure to Fight Climate Change
Jens Beckert
2024, Polity Press, 240pp

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