“EARTH FOR ALL – Embarking on a Future for All”: an inspiring conference

On Tuesday, 3 March 2026, Till Kellerhoff, Director (Content & Programmes) at the Club of Rome and Director of Earth4All, gave a lecture to a full house at the invitation of the Chamber of Employees and the Mouvement Ecologique.

The speaker, co-author of the bestseller ‘Earth for All’, gave an extremely inspiring presentation on how we can overcome today’s ecological and, in some cases, social crisis.

He outlined the challenges we face as a society. This part of the presentation was even interesting for those who are already familiar with the topics, as he illustrated his talk with stimulating examples and graphics. For example, he used a graph showing how many CO2 emissions are emitted over the course of a human lifetime, depending on age. The graph below is sobering…

In the second part of the presentation, however, the speaker focused primarily on possible solutions.

The main ‘building blocks’ for these solutions are to strengthen the following goals:

• social cohesion,
• the well-being of all,
• and living within planetary boundaries.

He divided these goals into five ‘global turning points’ (see slide) where there is a central need for action:

• Combating inequality and poverty,
• • genuine equality,
• • responsible agriculture and nutrition,
• • eco-social energy transition,
• • economical use of resources.

For the areas of ‘combating inequality’ and ‘energy transition,’ he focused on two scenarios: ‘too little, too late’ or ‘giant leap.’

The summary at the end of the lecture was extremely insightful: how can political implementation succeed, what is the role of the various social actors, and how can change succeed?

A quote from Donella Meadows concluded the lecture. The author is the wife of Dennis L. Meadows, the well-known author of the study ‘The Limits to Growth’. At the time, according to the speaker, the publisher stated that Donella Meadows’ name should not appear on the book cover (even though she co-authored the book), as this would deter readers …:

“People don’t need huge cars; they need respect. They don’t need wardrobes full of clothes; they need to feel attractive, and they need excitement, variety and beauty.

People need identity, community, challenge, recognition, love, joy.

Attempting to satisfy these needs with material things is tantamount to creating an insatiable hunger for false solutions to real and never-satisfied problems.

The resulting emotional emptiness is one of the most important driving forces behind the desire for material growth.

A society that recognises and can name its non-material needs and finds non-material ways to satisfy them would require far less material and energy flows and would offer a far higher degree of human fulfilment.”

The video of the lecture can be found below, and the slides for the lecture (in german) can be found in the downloads.

Translated by deepl.com 

05.03.2026