How climate change breaks the promise of progress

We are pleased to announce that Naomi Oreskes – world‑renowned scholar, leading voice on climate science, and bestselling author of The Merchants of Doubt and The Big Myth – will visit Stockholm on April 24 for an evening event at ABF-huset.

In The Big Myth, Oreskes shows how American business interests fostered a near-spiritual belief in free markets to resist environmental and labor regulation. Merchants of Doubt revealed how corporate lobbying spread distrust in climate science using tactics once employed by the tobacco industry.

In her talk, Oreskes will present new work demonstrating how climate change, when fully understood scientifically, undermines the historical promise of continuous progress that Western institutions are built on. She will also examine how futuristic narratives and faith in technological fixes distract from confronting the power structures delaying climate action.

Naomi Oreskes is Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. She is a globally respected earth scientist, historian, and public speaker, known for her work on the role of science in society, the impacts of human‑driven climate change, and the politics of disinformation.

Time and place: Friday, 24 April, 18:00 Zätasalen, ABF-huset Sveavägen 41, Stockholm

Tickets include food and drinks at a mingle afterwards. Proceeds from tickets support ABF's activities promoting lifelong learning, democracy, and equality.

The event is part of a new series of public events called Changing Earth, that brings internationally leading voices to Stockholm to explore how human societies altered the conditions of the Earth System and what it means to inhabit this new world that we are facing. The series is organised by the Centre for Anthropocene History and the Environmental Humanities Laboratory at KTH Royal Institute for Technology, in collaboration with ABF Stockholm and Arena Idé.