Closing event for the College of Societal Transitions: “Is disobedience required in order to respond to the ecological emergency?”

The international scientific community has long and repeatedly warned us about climate and biodiversity issues with increasingly alarming findings. It seems that “we are witnessing a tragedy in the making – which we have been sufficiently warned about – with a sort of indifference,” through collective inaction, on the part of political leaders and civil society alike. How much longer can we put up with this? How can we take a stand, individually and collectively, when short-term decisions take precedence over medium and long-term issues, and therefore preempt the future? Is civil disobedience, as practiced by Henri Thoreau, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, a way for us to move forward and take collective action?

at Polytech Nantes, rue Christian Pauc, Nantes