What Gives Climate Change Leaders Hope

It’s often said that being a parent is the hardest job in the world. But I think the hardest job just might be being an inspiring climate change leader.

The challenges climate leaders face layer on one another like sticks at a campfire--from a global economy that relies on fossil fuels to the government’s effective refusal to be a problem solver to the growing but not yet decisive public demand for climate action. 

I could go on. But let me add just one more thing: a whiff of despair. 

More than a few people working on climate change have suggested that it is too late. That the problem is too big. The actions too small. The time too short. The politics too stacked against us. 

Put another way: While great progress continues — especially in clean energy, philanthropy, conservation, and increasingly corporate sustainability – some feel that hope is running out. 

Of course, 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.

As the dissident-turned-president Vaclav Havel wrote: “Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

Or to paraphrase something the poet-farmer Wendell Berry once said to me: The question driving our actions should not be “Will we succeed?” but “Is it the right thing to do?”

When we are clear about this, we can renew our own energy no matter what is happening around us. 

So, what gives you hope, despite the great challenges we face? The economics of clean energy? Technological innovation? Corporate leadership? Governors and mayors? Young people? Something else?