Climate change and hope are not mutually exclusive.

Having productive climate conversations takes some emotional and social intelligence. But we can meet this challenge, whereas we can’t fix a problem most people don’t know how to discuss.

Add up the growing number of forces putting pressure on businesses to accelerate climate action—from Mother Nature to shareholders, the government, consumers, and employees—and it appears we are well on our way to that tipping point.

But a tipping point has another side to it. And there are many opportunities ahead for businesses willing to address the elephant in the room.

Namely: the need to get better about talking about climate change.

Many think it is naïve to be hopeful about climate action. But I believe that is based on a misunderstanding of hope – and its great value as a motivator.

Why don’t more people talk about climate change – despite this summer’s record-breaking heat?

Today’s article in the NYT’s newsletter, Climate Forward, said that politics is a big part of it. Many people fear getting into arguments about climate change. They don’t realize most Americans agree that it is a serious issue. And they’re understandably intimidated by the complexity of it all.

But there is another big factor at play, as well.

a better understanding of our own nature can help inspire a more effective response to what is happening to the natural world.

Developing a better mindset to meet the climate challenge requires that we get our climate anxiety under control. Here are three research-based ways Susan Clayton, a professor of psychology at the College of Wooster, suggests doing that.

I was driving my son home from school one day when he grabbed my phone to Google something and announced: “Neil de Grasse Tyson says it’s too late to solve [recover from] climate change.”

“What?” I said with a mix of incredulity and anxiety. “That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s Neil de Grasse Tyson,” my 13-year-old responded matter-of-factly.

How do we raise children for a world in which, as the experts put it, the "new normal" is not normal at all? There are ways!

What if one impossible task of this moment is to learn to let go? … Let go of our misguided ways of focusing so much on the things that ultimately matter so little, and so little on the things that matter so much.

Loss has taught me that there is an even greater love than whatever it is we may have lost.

In our increasing stillness, there are moments of dropping into a deeper place within ourselves—and a hint of how we might wish to live when we emerge from COVID.

We help ourselves the most not by trying to overcome our fears, anxieties and insecurities. We help ourselves the most, in the words of Tara Brach, by practicing some radical acceptance—acceptance of the truth as we find it now and now and now.

I have a very long and intimate relationship with fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of ridicule. Fear of injury. Fear of change. Fear of divorce. Fear of death. Fear of missing out on my life—ironically, as a result of my many fears.

One small thing I have learned to be true—that helps me get out of tight spots like the one I just put myself into, and that is helping me navigate, just a little bit better, this difficult moment for our world—is that it helps to try every day, every moment you can, to listen to your instincts.

It is now so abundantly, dramatically clear— in that over-the-top, Greek tragedy kind of way—how much is beyond my control. Beyond our control. How appropriate it is to have more humility. To stop thinking we can three-step or five-step or ten-step our way to grand solutions to life’s great challenges. Time to accept how much bigger life is than us and put our focus on helping in the small but important ways we can. And focus on sharing our helping, healing moments—our moments of uplift—with others.