Hope in the context of climate change and the global crisis

Hope, or confidence, espérance in French, is the “ability” to see the future in the present and to recognise, amid the chaos of the present, the beginnings of a social movement that, despite the forces opposing it, is accompanying it. This is why hope differs from optimism, which is a mask of denial and makes one believe that one has the situation under control. Hope is not a psychological trait, but a virtue. That is why it also differs from personal expectation, which in French is referred to as espoir. Paradoxically, the current climatic, political and geopolitical situation, which confronts us with instability and forces us to question many of our certainties, offers the right moment to speak of hope. For the current situation requires accepting losses and experiencing negativity. However, if hope is, as Bernanos says, ‘despair defeated,’ one must also consider that despair comes with a destructive dialectic and often leads to resentment. That is why it is important to emphasise the political dimension of hope. The extreme risks we face contribute to people being tempted to transform their feelings of powerlessness into omnipotence, rather than facing up to the dangers and their own limitations. This explains the appeal of simplistic discourse from the extreme right, polarisation, presentism and unrestrained consumption. The question is therefore: How can we transform the negative emotions associated with experiences of loss and awareness of danger, evil and our own fallibility into constructive engagement? How can hope give us the right measure to see the future in the present, or even in the promises of the past that we have not kept? What kind of energy is required for this, and how does this transformative power differ from the pathological energy that characterises nationalism and right-wing populists?

The lecture will be delivered in German.

Corine Pelluchon is a philosopher and professor at Gustave-Eiffel University near Paris. Her main areas of interest are animal and environmental ethics, political philosophy, and phenomenology. She has published twenty books, including Les Lumières à l’âge du vivant (Seuil 2021), Manifeste animaliste. Politiser la cause animale (Alma 2017), L’espérance, ou la traversée de l’impossible (Payot/Rivage 2023), Pour comprendre Levinas. Un philosophe pour notre temps (Seuil 2020). These are available in German translation.  Her two latest books, which will be published in German by C.H. Beck in 2026 and 2027, are La démocratie sans emprise ou la puissance du féminin (Rivages 2025) and L’être et la mer. Pour un existentialisme écologique. Her work was awarded the Günther Anders Prize for Critical Thinking in 2020 and the Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize in 2025.

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About the lecture series

The KOSMOS-Lesungen are in the tradition of one of the most famous lecture series in the German history of science: Alexander von Humboldt's Kosmos Lectures. Around 100 years ago, the natural scientist spanned the entire world and all disciplines of science. Today's interdisciplinary KOSMOS lectures are dedicated to the challenging transformation processes in the age of the Anthropocene. On two evenings per semester, researchers from a wide range of disciplines talk about anthropogenic environmental and climate change in an understandable way and invite the broad public to discuss together.

Note on film and photo recordings

During the event, photos and videos will be taken. The material will be used exclusively for the purpose of public relations