Discourse at the Philharmonie
“Is climate change disappearing from the political agenda?”

La Mer
An interview with the marine biologist Antje Boetius

In the spring of 2025, the German marine biologist will begin work as president of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California. In the course of our interview, she talks about what she is especially looking forward to, the role that climate change will continue to play in her life, and whether we will ever truly learn to see the ocean as a gigantic habitat.

Biographies

Antje Boetius

Antje Boetius is a marine researcher and microbiologist who specialises in questions of marine material cycles and biodiversity as well as research into deep-sea ecosystems using underwater robots. She is currently focussing on the effects of climate change on the biodiversity of the Arctic Ocean. Antje Boetius has been Scientific Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven since 2017; in spring, she will take over as Director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in California.

Steffen Mau

Steffen Mau is a professor of macrosociology at Humboldt University in Berlin. He has published numerous books which have received many awards, including the Bavarian Book Prize for his analysis of the relationship between East and West Germany,  Ungleich vereint (2024). His book Lütten Klein was number one on the non-fiction best list of ZDF, Deutschlandfunk Kultur and Die Zeit. Steffen Mau comes from Rostock and initially trained as an electronics technician; after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he studied sociology and politics at the FU Berlin. In 2021, he received the Leibniz Prize from the German Research Foundation.