Citizens' Climate Lobby: Keeping hope alive in the time of eco-anxiety and despair - HollandSentinel.com

Citizens' Climate Lobby: Keeping hope alive in a time of eco-anxiety

Citizens' Climate Lobby: Keeping hope alive in the time of eco-anxiety and despair

As I write this column the United Nations summit on climate change, COP28, just reached an agreement challenging, for the first time, all nations on planet Earth to transition away from the use of fossil fuels. Is it time to celebrate? A lot depends upon how you’re inclined to react. For those optimists among us — yes, celebrate. For the skeptical, holding out to see if governments and petroleum corporations really will act in good faith, expect a muted reaction. For those fearful that it’s all too little and too late, anticipate a depressed reaction.

As a clinical psychologist, I realize how much hope plays a critical role in making positive changes. Hope is necessary for people to build resilience, to stay motivated and to persist against difficult circumstances. Staying anxious or depressed can lead to inaction and helplessness. Climate is the existential crisis of our time; to successfully deal with it we have to keep hope alive.

We need to build, maintain, and deepen our climate hope. But how do we build climate hope? Begin with each one of us doing our own part. Write out a climate action plan. Set one or two goals that are doable on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Mark your progress, then celebrate your successes even if you take one step back for every two steps forward.

If you run out of ideas for what climate action steps you can take, there are great resources out there to help you. Look for books like Heidi Roop’s, "The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Actions for Everyone." Discover practical ideas on websites like citizensclimatelobby.org. Or, check out social media; Gen Z climate optimist Zahra Biabani’s TikTok account is a good place to begin. Just start with one or two and build climate hope!

How do we maintain climate hope? We are social animals; we need each other to sustain hope. Whatever new resolve you undertake, you are more likely to do it if you tell a friend who will encourage you or even come along with you. That’s why joining climate groups (like Citizens’ Climate Lobby) with a local presence can be so helpful.

We also need positive feedback that our climate actions matter, especially when news headlines are filled with the latest climate catastrophe. We don’t need to deny bad news or minimize it; there is a healthy place for lament over ecological calamities if it evokes an appropriate action or protest. But we need to hear about good news of positive climate action as much as possible to sustain hope.

Thankfully there is good news, or at least better news about climate action, if we know where to look. Read books like Biabani’s "Climate Optimism: Celebrating Systemic Change Around the World" or Dr. Katharine Hayhoe’s "Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World." Sign up for weekly online news digests like climativity.com or futurecrunch.com that share news of climate positivity.

How do we deepen climate hope? This is the time of the year when those of us who share a Judeo-Christian heritage are inspired to keep hope and faith alive by remembering stories of the past—stories of prophecies fulfilled, miraculous events, and unlikely heroes who restored hope to the oppressed; they all ring with the promise that God is not done yet in bringing full justice and mercy to the world!

For those who don’t share these Judeo-Christian traditions, you might deepen hope by reflecting on the history of America’s civil rights protest movements where a small minority, often non-violent in nature, transformed society against great odds for the common good.

We need to nurture a climate hope that runs deep, based on the conviction that, no matter how tentatively held at times, together we will one day overcome the destructive ways we have treated planet Earth and that we will restore the damage we have done. We can do this together in 2024 and beyond!

— Peter Everts is a member of the Holland area chapter of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby.