While the urgency of the climate challenge has not diminished, the coronavirus pandemic, and the wide range of responses on the part of various states and national economies, has taken center stage. Some are even calling it a “dress rehearsal” if, for example, global ecology were to pass some threshold or tipping point. The parallels may not be clear, but COVID-19 provides a new lens, and new material, with which to take account of where we may be headed.

This discussion will begin with an introduction to the ideas presented in Climate Leviathan, with some updated reflections, and then turn to the possible lessons from the pandemic.

About the Speaker: Geoff Mann is an INET Senior Fellow, Professor at Simon Frasier University in British Columbia, and author of numerous books. His works include In the Long Run We Are All Dead: Keynesianism, Political Economy and Revolution and Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future. For several years he has researched the political-economic and geopolitical futures that might emerge in a world subject to extreme climate change.