ABSTRACT
Addressing climate change requires accepting the reality of the science, but also having the faith and knowledge that change is within the power of our societies and of us as individuals. Without this sense of empowerment, the slow grinding of the daily bad news wins, as we read about hurricane after hurricane, heat wave after heat wave, drought after drought, wildfires out of control, arctic ice sheets calving country-sized icebergs, and the poor suffering the most. Given the severity of the problem, it is tempting to be a Cassandra calling for only doom, but people do not typically respond well to cries of apocalypse; they either ignore them or hunker down and focus on their own near term. Local politicians, in particular, get elected on platforms of better times ahead, shared goals that people recognize as good for themselves and their neighbors. The question becomes how to frame and understand climate change in a way that enables us to address it, rather than ignore it. David Orr’s answer is hope. He presents a hefty challenge for society: to face climate change honestly, without illusions about its causes or the level of reorganization necessary to stave off catastrophe, but nevertheless to take action. Orr argues that “Optimism is the recognition that the odds are in your favor; hope is the faith that things will work out whatever the odds. Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up.” Against the scale of the problem of climate change, hope is foundational to creating solutions. He argues that hope can and must be found by each of us. The work of minimizing climate change, he explains, is to create a vision of a post-consumer society, vibrant sustainable communities and livable environments, and then work toward that vision. Climate change is a technical and scientific problem, but also a problem of values. Most people value a well-rounded, full life rather than one with just more stuff, but we need to do a better job of expressing those values and influencing policy to achieve them. David Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and 12Politics at Oberlin College, and serves as senior adviser to the college president. He is widely recognized as a leading scholar on the pedagogy of sustainability, and has authored seven books and numerous articles, book chapters, and other publications.
