The Topic - what does 'Challenge the Best' aim at?
“It’s probably time for sunset”, states Professor Michael Golay from the Working Group III of the fourth IPCC assessment report. Now that the IPCC has succeeded in establishing climate change as “a reality in the minds of most people” the next step is actually a social question, one that is “much more difficult than coming up with new technologies […] since it is a broad social problem.” “We’re really talking about interfering with markets” and we have to “frame the question for the next stage”.
Maldive's president and his 12 cabinet ministers holding a government meeting five metres underwater. (Source: www.presidency maldives.gov.mv)
‘Challenge the Best’ will look at “the next stage” focusing on climate change adaptation from a social perspective and ask the event’s key question:
How can we increase world society’s ability to adapt to climate change in order to moderate potential societal damage and take advantage of social, political and economic opportunities?
Our focus on the sociological perspective aims at adding an additional dimension to the by now well known debate about climate change. It becomes clear that a sociological understanding of the topic is the key to not only find solutions on how to mitigate climate change but also on how the world will adapt to it and what effects this will have on the global society. The latter is the focal point of ‘Challenge the Best’ expressed in the topic of the event “Climate Change and Social Order – Evolution or Revolution?’