In the mid 1980’s Niklas Luhmann gave a lecture on the question if ‘modern society’ could ‘adjust itself’ to ecological dangers. This lecture formed the basis for the book Ecological Communication, published in 1986. Through a rich analysis of some of Luhmann’s ideas, this review article confronts the same question. ‘Rather than a larger megaphone, a more trenchant critique, a new ethics, or yet another blueprint for ecological reform, it seems that what may be needed most is an explanation why society is so strangely intransigent to attempts to steer it in the direction of greater ecological sustainability’.