Ackerman Lecture: Just Transition and Democratic Planning

Climate change and our broader ecological crisis pose a serious challenge to our basic social and political systems. A variety of styles of response to this scale have emerged. Some involve emphasis on centralized decision-making by experts, whether the “Green New Deal” scale national policies of states or by way of the returns-driven focus of institutional investors and asset managers. Others call for more distributed decision making, emphasizing market mechanisms like carbon taxes and offsets or the role of sub-national public entities in energy transition. The talk will present examples of each of these approaches and discuss the underlying implications and stakes for democratic life and institutions. Guest Speaker: Dr. Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University.