The words of climate optimists
We can be the first generation to achieve sustainability. Data shows humanity is capable of solving global problems.
Hannah Ritchie Not the End of the World 2024
Climate and Earth systems scientists have been screaming red alert from the rooftops, but have also made clear that humanity still has an opportunity yo create a world in which we thrive, rather than one in which we struggle to survive”.
We all need a stubborn climate optimist mindset
Humanity has the capacity and ingenuity to address any chalenge – including the climate crisis.
There is no guarantee we will succeed. The world has never faced these problems before. Stubborn optimism is not about blind faith or believing everything will turn out okay, regardless.
With a stubbornnly optimistic mindset, we believe ‘impossible is not a fact, it is an attitude’. And our attitudes are fully under our control.
Our thoughts
“I don’t doubt we have the capacity, but it’s human nature to want to be bigger and better, and that needs tackling, for example, empire and colonialism”.
“Yes, we’ve proved we can solve big problems, but the climate crisis involves more inconvenience for more people than, for example, the ozone layer or the Clean Air Act”.
“It could be dangerous to talk like this. People might think there’s no need to act”.
“I’m naturally pessimistic (or a realistic optimist). We don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. I tend towards doomism. I could be optimistic that humans change. I’m thinking of the quote from David Graeber ‘The world is a story we tell ourselves. We can easily tell a different story’”.
“There must be a sweet spot between hope, optimism and doom”.
“I was struggling to think of any data that says we can solve global problems! Then I felt humanity has the capacity to address challenges, but not right now because we’re reaching the tipping point (for climate change) at the wrong time, when the wrong type of people are in charge. The news from Gaza makes me feel I’m losing my faith in humanity”.
“I remember a quote from a conversation a long time ago when a writer said ‘We don’t need hope, we need courage’ and that has stuck with me”.
“There’s a lack of political will”.
“This quote about optimism annoys me! It’s like manifesting the future you want”.
“It’s almost a form of denial”.
“You’d feel better, though in the meantime, if you were optimistic”.
“We can be optimistic about some things and pessimistic about others”.
“There’s a problem in society generally where you’re always asked to pick a side. It lacks nuance”.
Compared with climate doomers
Environmentalism gives false hope. We are already past the point of no return. We should face reality.
Paul Kingsnorth in The Ecologist 2010
Curiously enough, accepting this reality brings about not despair, as some have suggested, but a great sense of hope. Once we stop pretending the impossible can happen, we are released to think seriously about the future.
People are giving up on activism because they’re like, ‘I can’t handle it anymore…. This is too much….’ and ‘If it realy is too late why am I even trying?’
Alaina North Climate scientist on Tik Tok, quoted in a BBC article in 2022
Climate doomism is the idea that we atre past the point of being able to do anything at all about global warming – and that mankind is highly likely to go extinct.
What do you think or feel at the end of today’s conversation?
“I feel a bit irritated with some of the quotes”.
“I prefer realism. Feelings can come and go”.
“I liked the comment about finding the sweet spot”.
“I liked the comment about nuance”.
“I’m a bit frightened by the comment from the book about it being dangerous in the wrong hands”.