In a later chapter in his book Flourishing, John Ehrenfeld says that the question of whether one is optimistic or pessimistic about the future is the wrong question. The right question about the future, he says, is, “Are you hopeful?” Why might that be an important question to ask if you are thinking about engaging with issues of sustainability as a young adult?
And what is your personal response to that question. Are you hopeful? If so, why? From what source or feeling do you manufacture your hope? And if not, what motivates you to pursue an educational path that includes an emphasis on a study of the environment even though you are not hopeful for the future?
Provide your answer as a comment to this post. Remember – your comments are public.
Hope is important when engaging with issues of sustainability as a young adult because the complexities and obstacles that arise when tackling tough problems can feel nearly impossible to overcome. When the great minds of our generation and the generations before have struggled to find a way to encompass the varying perspectives, needs and desires of a diverse world community then it can make a young mind question whether their lack of experience and un-weathered thoughts can really be the ones that make a difference. It is in those moments that hope becomes pivotal as one trudges on, continuing to study and strive to make change in the environmental realm.
At times I feel my hope waivers. I find that the mounting inequities that face us feel like too heavy a burden to bear. I feel that I am constantly bombarded through news and social media with the problems of the world and wonder if we will ever find peace and stillness. It is in those moments that I search for order.
When my father was an undergraduate student studying theology he went through a similar crisis, feeling that there was too much unrest in the world and that it was difficult to continue on. At the time my father had a professor who instructed the class to look out the big window of the classroom. With all the headlines of the day it was a time when people thought the world was falling apart but together they looked at the parking lot outside. They viewed people being courteous, obeying the rules and generally doing what is best for the greater good. If you look at the majority of what people do it can provide perspective on the negative things that do occur in the world. There is an orderliness and kindness to the everyday interactions.
In a previous post I discussed the idea of hope from the perspective of course readings. In both the Adam Kahane novel Solving Tough Problems and the introductory video for the Oberlin Project they refer to this idea of being not optimistic, not pessimistic but hopeful because hope is “that sweet spot where you have got to roll up your sleeves” (The Oberlin Project). I think this view on hope is an important one because it incorporates an action component. Action is a great coping mechanism; doing something and not letting yourself get too bogged down by the complexity is an important step towards finding solutions. It requires hope to recognize that you will try and fail and must leverage that hope to continue to iterate again and again. Within this I think I need also mention that this order I speak of is not a static order of society that continues to perpetuate the status quo but rather one in which failure and system complexity are recognized and even embraced.
It is helpful for me to find solace in the individual relationships and interactions I have but I cannot allow myself to become short-sighted and too content with this. I must take the comfort I find in the order and kindness of daily interactions and combine it with my passion in order to continue to work towards finding solutions to the tough problems that do still plague us as a society.
While being optimistic or pessimistic tells people’s attitudes about the future development of reality that is largely out of their control, hopefulness, suggests a positive heart that believes in the possibility of changes for the better. It is precisely this belief in the possibility of positive changes, rather than the belief in positive change itself as implied by optimism, that motivate the hopeful people to strive for those changes even in the direst situations. In the discourse of sustainability for us, this distinction between optimism and hopefulness is particularly important as the challenge of sustainability is always daunting. It’s almost certain that the world would not transition into sustainable development straight away and the environment cannot fix itself. Therefore, to allow the positive outcomes, like the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, to be realized, active actions must be taken. And to make things happen we must first believe in the possibility of them whatever direction the reality seems to be going.
For young adults in our age, who are just beginning to engage with real world challenges on sustainability, staying hopeful is important in the face of future frustrations and obstacles.The development of things in the future would often run contrary to what an optimistic outlook would expect and disappointment would become common norms, and hope is what can sustain us through those hostile situations. Hopefulness is a belief in the inherent tendency of the mankind to aspire for what is good. In terms of the environmental challenges, this means a trust in people’s innate ability to love the nature and each other, and it is this innate love that can unite all people together in the strife for a more sustainable planet. In reality, interest groups or short-sighted views may put formidable obstacles to the realization of the mutual love, but the belief that the common good is achievable would keep motivating us to do what is right and render the efforts made in that direction meaningful. In a nutshell, in engaging with the issues of sustainability, hope can give us the direction and the motivation to act.
Personally I believe I’m a hopeful person despite the fact that I’m often upset about the status quo of our environment. Although the condition of the environment in my home country today is still very poor and environmentally irresponsible behaviors are rampant, I strongly believe that positive changes are possible and achievable. I obtained my hope mainly from the history of changes I observed and the aspiration for improvement expressed by many people. My hometown in Northeast China used to be a center for heavy industry and chemical industry. My mother told me that when I was a kid people didn’t dare to open the window during the day since the smoke from a coal-fired power plant nearby would get into the room. Hunhe River, the “mother river” of the city was also in deplorable condition at that time due to the sewage emission of factories alongside it and the river smelled horrible with disgusting foams on the surface. As I grew up I witnessed the deconstruction of many of the polluting smokestacks and the building of new green spaces in their sites. The stinky river, with years of efforts in a cleaning projects, was also turned clear again and riverside parks were constructed where people enjoyed their leisure times. Although today I’ve realized that those are only two of the many environmental challenges facing our world, the experience of dramatic environmental changes convinced me that positive changes are possible with enough wills and efforts.
Moreover, in my communication with people from all walks of life I usually feel a genuine concern by many people about the well-being of the environment and the welfare of the future generations. Friends and classmates in discussions on class or outside shared their concerns about the impacts of climate change around the world in the form of droughts, storms, forest fires and rising sea levels and expressed their deep worries about the future of the world. Travelers I met in trips to a conservation area praised the fresh air and pleasant serenity of the “nature” as compared to the polluted urban center, and complained about the serious air pollution problem and its adverse effects on the children. Children I taught in elementary schools felt sad about the destruction of forests and said they don’t want the birds and animals to die. People all love clean and undisturbed environment and all believe in the protection of our rich natural resources for the future generations. Those widely-shared desires, concerns and love of the environment heightens my anxiety over the environmental problems but also makes me hopeful that with so many people hoping for them, improvements in our relationship with the environment are definitely possible and achievable, even when undesirable changes are also constantly happening in the world.
In Terry Pratchet’s book going Postal, he writes of a man that literally falls into a seemingly insurmountable challenge. He has no optimism or support that he will be successful and though it seems impossible, he maintains hope and a desire to try. Without this attitude how can one realistically look a situation, if one is only seeing the positive or negative aspects of a situation then there will be no coherence. A holistic approach is necessary and hope as a motivator allows for this. This is applicable to almost any situation, especially the looking at the challenge of how to deal with such large issues as “the environment”.
This past week during lunch we were lucky enough to get an hour to listen and talk with Alden Woodrow who spoke about his work on solar kites at Google X. Woodrow spoke open and honestly about his doubt that these kites would ever become integrated into the fabric of everyday life, however one thing that struck a chord was though he was doubtful of the success he said that he would not be working on the project if he did not have hope. At first I was confused, how could one have hope if they did not believe the project would come to fruition? The more I thought about it the more I came to realize the separation between optimism, pessimism, and hope. Hope is an incredibly powerful instrument, without it; there is almost no reason to work towards anything.
As for the question of if I am hopeful or not has taken me a while to come to a conclusion about that. I do not think that I could possibly let myself think or care about the issue of environmentalism if I did not have some amount of hope. I still think there is the possibility that it will get much worse before it gets better, but in the end I believe everything will be ok even if I do not see that end.
We are taught at a very young age that environmental problems are an overwhelming and unconquerable wall. The first memory I have of this was in second grade. Children all across the United States in second or third grade learn about the rainforest. They are introduced to the species that are at risk within it, the thousands of acres of deforestation happening everyday and most of all they are introduced to the feeling of dread and helplessness that has been coupled to environmental problems. After second grade I felt overwhelmed and helpless. Anything that I could do was small and felt pointless in the large-scale view of destruction that was facing the environment. At my class’ first exposure to environmental studies we were not inspired or called into action but were instead already burned out before we had even considered beginning.
Luckily other elements of my life were teaching me how to hope. During the summers of my childhood I attended programs at Teton Science School in Grand Teton National Park, where I was taught to hope and care. Instead of being faced with the crushing reality of large-scale issues, I was introduced to the small individual needs of different species and ecosystems within the national park and my state as a whole. I was given the opportunity to fall in love with the natural world and given a desire to protect what I loved. After learning about the species and ecosystems that I cared for so deeply, I learned what they/it needed, and what tangible practices I could implement or fight for that would protect them and allow them to flourish. Before I had any true concept of environmentalism or environmental studies, I had learned the importance and power that lies within micro-solutions. While playing and learning alongside my peers, I also learned that as long as other people care, I would never be facing any problem truly alone.
I still find immense hope in the micro-solutions and actions of environmentalism. I also find excitement and hope for the future in both my own, and others’ love for the environment and the community that exists within that. After many lucky years of attending Teton Science School, bird banding courses, Girl Scout campouts, and numerous other guiding experiences through the environment, I decided to switch roles from student to teacher. This has by far been my largest well of hope. As I, and other educators exposed children to the environment and helped to foster and spark their love for the natural world, I was given the gift of seeing a drive for change and action come alive in even the four year olds in my program. These children were not bogged down by the height and thickness of the wall in front of them, but were instead eagerly working towards chipping off small victories. I have been lucky enough to see six and seven year olds rally their classmates and families into creating a campaign to protect king fisher habitat and nests along the Yellowstone River, and to see child after child fight to protect the world that they love. This is in no way a testament to me or to my basic teaching skills, but rather to the power of passion and love that can bring about serious change.
When I feel overwhelmed or helpless in the shadow of the wall, I remember the small chips that my students, peers, and myself have knocked out of the wall. I remember the thousands of individuals both human and non human that have been touched by the small chips we have knocked away. After a while, these micro-solutions start to feel much larger and much more significant then simply a tiny chip from the wall. I am not alone. As long as others care, and are being taught to care, no problem must be faced alone. Every chip makes a difference, and while I may not be changing the world on my own, I am still very capable of bringing about important change in this world.
Who’s to say if a question is right?
Ehrenfeld’s shift from optimism to hope makes sense within his program. His foundational concept — flourishing and/or the ideology behind it — rejects binaries in favor of continuous directions. Instead of asking whether we are acting sustainably or acting unsustainably, he looks at the arrow of flourishing and ask how we can move closer to that horizon. This makes sense for framing sustainability, since the work is never finished. We strive. The same kind of thinking, of geometric rays or half-lines pointing away to infinity, suggests the open-ended question of hope. It’s part of the package, the suite, the brand of flourishing, the self-contained product ecosystem for thinking about anything. Fair enough; I think that flourishing is, on balance, an improvement on existing mainstream environmental ideology, but we shouldn’t stop there. We should continue to strive for more and more helpful ways of thinking. It’s only fitting.
So that’s one answer. “Are you hopeful?” is a more nuanced question than one of optimism and pessimism. The real question it’s asking is, “How hopeful are you?” You can always be more hopeful, by fine gradations. It also sounds more fluid to me, like your hope is open to changing course in response to future developments, while optimism and pessimism feel more linear, unchangeable, and locked into only our current trajectory. I think this makes hope valuable as an alternative to simplistic and conclusive pronouncement.
Am I hopeful? I find this question really difficult, because my first instinct is to say no. But maybe I shouldn’t answer binarily. But maybe if the answer is yes it has something to do with the fact that abstract mathematics and art history are losing their shine for me. Some areas of environmental studies have been the only things that have enduring inherent value in my mind.
Maybe we should instead ask, “Are you dedicated to carefully and passionately improving the future state of the world?”
Do I need to be hopeful to be involved in environmental studies? Doom and gloom have become the standard propellants of the environmental movement (not to say that they’re the best). Hope is only one of several kinds of motivation. I’m hopeful that I can make a personal impact, but I’m less confident that that will have any discernible positive impact in the wider world, or that enough others will take action for a discernible collective positive impact. But inaction is destructive. We need positive action to counterbalance rampant destructive action. Is that hopeful enough? That we can counterbalance that?
Sustainability Practicum Prompt #4
One can be hopeful in creating change, slowing down the current pace of climate change, while still not hopeful that humans can be selfless enough to avoid eventual devastating outcomes. Perhaps stemming from my southern background, or because of the current political climate, I am not hopeful about the United States making the needed changes quickly enough. We are fully aware of what is happening, yet have made very small steps in the realm of any real changes. And with every small step taken, there are those who are fighting against those small changes. When Bill Mckibben came to speak to MSoE, he stated that only 5% of the population is now climate change deniers, which is hard to fathom, with the denial of climate change by the republican front-runner, or thinking back to viewpoints of peers in high school.
I turn to Hampshire College professor, Michael Klare, in a recent article published in The Nation:
“Despite such advances [in renewable energy], the allure of fossil fuels hasn’t dissipated. Individuals, governments, whole societies continue to opt for such fuels even when they gain no significant economic advantage from that choice and risk causing severe planetary harm. Clearly, something irrational is at play.”
Michael Klare is the director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies, and often speaks to climate wars. I admire the work he does, although not seeming hopeful for the future, as I feel it is more realistic of the situation we currently face. I am slightly hopeful that renewables may catch up to speed with enough demand for clean energy. Bearing some sort of hope when tackling issues of sustainability is important, especially as a young adult, as one can contribute more time and energy into a system they are hopeful will flourish. Having hope in this field can also be positive in creating a healthy framework for environmental studies to move forward in. It can create a more positive discussion in the field, and provide motivation to live as ‘authentic’ (as Ehrenfeld stated) as possible in the environment we are in.
Sources:
https://www.thenation.com/article/bad-news-were-actually-using-more-fossil-fuels-than-ever/
When I here the question “Are you hopeful?” in my head it sounds the same to me as “are you passionate?” Ideally hopes and passions go hand-in-hand when I think about the two. Ehrenfeld raises a very important ideology in emphasizing that optimistic versus pessimistic views are not essential topics for the future. What I like about the, “are you hopeful?” question is that whether you are young or old, its always good to have hope in or for something, if not a bundle of varying passions. As a young adult engaging in issues of environmental and social sustainability, it is ideal for me to be hopeful for the future, because whatever I am hopeful and passionate about right now, as a young adult I am given a great platform to launch any of my efforts from. Also with youth I am given the privilege of knowing I can always change my hopes and passions and still feel strongly towards them, at a younger rather than older age. Nonetheless, with age comes wisdom and prestige. Lastly, this question is important to me personally because as a being on this planet, I owe it to myself to be the best I can be. At least my father has always told me so.
Besides what is ‘ideal’ or what I have been told to believe, I am hopeful for the future. I definitely have a lot of faith in the idea that my generation of youth, is going to be one of the most progressive in all of history, solely in terms of equality, justice, and openness. I am hopeful for the future not only for the wellbeing of myself, but so that generations long beyond me, my distant kin, can live lives better than mine. What most drives my hope, are my goals of an equitable future; One that is open and free for all to pursue in any avenue of their choosing. My passion for human beings and biodiversity in other countries than the one I live in also fuels my hopes. In retrospect, life is no more valuable than another’s.
Environmental and social sustainability is important for the future of the world, both physically and in terms of earthly interactions. Optimistic views in comparison to pessimistic views are irrelevant as long as the end goal is the same. Too much of either can be viewed in both positive and negative aspects, so who is too say what the right proportion is. Also, who is to say whether people have subconscious reasons they are unaware of, consciously influencing whether views are optimistic or pessimistic? Nonetheless, hopes and passions can still be met on the same level from both sides.
Hopeful and Not, Avoiding Bill Maher Post no. 4
In the spirit of “Talking Openly,” as per Kahane’s recommendation, I will try here to summarize my ambivalence towards ‘hopefulness’ in the face of climate change, especially as a young woman entering the so called ‘real world’ of environmentalism. As ambivalence typically does, mine exists in a reluctant and ever-shifting nature. I can and do think myself in hopelessly cyclical circles on a daily basis. In the one direction, I contemplate the privilege inherent in any hopefulness I may feel, and in the other, I circle back to the very real potentiality that I adopt a Bill Maherian sense of realism wherein I quickly become too much of a pain in the ass even to invite over for dinner.
Mental gymnastics aside, what I find most frustrating about feeling/acting/being hopeful is its common misconception as naiveté. I can honestly say that at this moment, I believe our salvation will be found in a scaling down and relocalization of community organization, food systems and resource dependence. A re-villaging, if you will. However I believe that the success of this movement rests on numerous contingencies of environmental thought and deconstruction of present power structures, an exercise which itself relegates the movement to the hills colleges like this one rest upon. To my thinking, such a localization will (ideally) be based not in an ignorance of or insulation from the interconnectedness of contemporary society but rather, and here’s where my anti-Maher optimism begins to show, it will be based in a recognition that ‘one size does not [and should not] fit all,’ nor should we allow our systems to accrete red-tape barriers to human interaction in an effort to streamline society. Maybe it is naïve to think that we can achieve a total reorganization of western values systems – a dissolution, as it were, of the binary relationships between mind/body, reason/emotion, respect/use in which we have operated for so long – but that is where I find at least some of my hope.
I also resonate with Ehrenrich’s insistence that we address these issues through a more self-reflective lens. Taking a step back from the transactionalized motions of our daily lives to evaluate the meanings we assign to our environ such that we might all ‘flourish’, rather than simply survive is the key to this approach and is part and parcel of the localization described above. Simultaneously more radical than the above model of localization and simpler in its dependence on the individual, in the end I think it harkens to a more spiritual sense of being which remains present in the teachings of today’s relevant organized religions. In spite of this introspection and achievement of self-actualized centredness, I believe that such introspection does not require an academically rigorous soul searching, nor should it rest solely upon separate religious doctrines. Instead, I beleive this centredness to be a wholly achievable goal through realization of the power of truth, beauty, love, and all the other subjective strata of the human condition, which have somehow been relegated to the realm of liberal academia and privilege. To decontextualize our lives from their transactional potential, to me, is both the simplest and most complex, most base and most privileged form of hopeful action.
Then again, here I am sitting on a porch in bucolic Middlebury, Vermont, able to watch as innocuous clouds shift their shadows along the western face of the Green Mountains, writing about the philosophical struggles I am facing as a young environmentalist, annoyed by due dates, terrified by Trump’s rapid rise in the polls, and bummed about the erratic prognosis of East Coast skiing, circling back to the question of whether my privilege as a student at Middlebury augments or degrades my credibility as an environmentalist. As I sit here mulling, the people of St. Lawrence Island – with which my second home shares its name but absolutely are none of its privilege – are being forced by rising sea levels, decreasing sea ice, and increasing storm surges to cobble together seawalls of whatever industrial and natural detritus they can acquire, so as to buy enough time to organize a just resettlement plan as their home is literally washed away.
In the end, they are working – they do not have time to philosophize – if they were as late in building sea walls as I am in submitting this blog post, the village of Savoonga would be no more. So I suppose I am most happy when mobilizing the information I have been lucky enough to take four years and a summer to mull over, the thoughts I have taken a moment to parse apart from their cyclical paths. Hopefully, I’ll have a chance to engage this hope into the future.
I think it is an especially difficult task to stay hopeful as an environmentalist. But without hope, we would give in to the ruination of humanity, and I personally could not watch that happen. I think hope is preferable as opposed to sabotaging the quality of life for our children and grandchildren. This is why we must include “flourishing” in our definition of sustainability.
The distinction Ehrenfeld poses between optimism and hope, to me, is the absence of action that optimism implies. You can be optimistic or pessimistic, meaning you can believe things are going to get better or things are going to get worse.
We must be hopeful, but not too hopeful. Look at the view some religious individuals may have: that God would not allow humans to destroy the Earth. Arguably, it is disrespectful to both God and the Earth that sustains us to exploit the environment for all it’s worth. The apathy many of us live with is what compromises sustainability.
I am going to quote the song “Lampshades on Fire” by Modest Mouse to describe the careless and conspicuous consumption that characterizes society today.
“Pack up again, head to the next place
Where we’ll make the same mistakes
Burn it up, or just chop it down
Ah, this one’s done so where to now?”
This song articulates the destruction of Earth to the point that humans are forced to relocate to another planet. This is entirely possible, but if we do not correct our ways before this is necessary, then we would destroy that planet as well. It is not enough to rely on scientists to find solutions to our mistakes. I have heard friends say “we’re just going to have to move to another planet” with a disregard for what happens to the planet Earth. “Mars is beautiful too”. But there is not a known planet matching Earth: one in which we can walk and run and swim and breathe as we do now. We must love the Earth to keep from destroying it. This is why I and many others like myself choose to be hopeful. We cannot repair the Earth to what it once was, but we can help all kinds of life flourish today and in the future.
I think that hope tends to be strongest, but perhaps also most fragile, in young adults. With youth there is an abundance of curiosity and unknowing. We are told by our elders to plan, plan, plan for the future, so we don’t make the same bad decisions or get stuck in hopeless stalemates like they have. The difference between optimism and hope is a clean one: optimism believes things will surely be good, while hope wants things to be genuinely good against negative odds. With this, you could argue that optimism is naive, and so it is a better question to ask, from a place of realism, whether someone is hopeful. With young adults, particularly on the topic of sustainability, hope can be very fragile in its realism because there are so many instances of non-success to look forward to. At this point, it will vary from person to person, and the question of optimism or pessimism becomes important. If you are optimistic and hopeful, you will probably push harder for sustainable success, but if you are pessimistic and hopeful, the realism of “hopeful for change” might be broken in the light of watching others have to work so hard to succeed, or personal experience of hitting a wall over and over.
I consider myself optimistic and hopeful. Maybe it stems from the curiosity and unknowing of my youth, but I am confident that the idea of constant non-success will not deter me from continuing my studies, and trying to find solutions and ways to implement them. I say non-success, because I don’t think it’s necessary to call an unsatisfactory attempt a failure. There is too much implication with the word “failure,” and maybe it’s my optimistic hope, but I think that any time you are working to improve the world around you, there is not going to be failure unless you give up. I don’t know if this sentiment is shared by many people, but I feel strongly about it.
Others who have been in this business a lot longer than I have tend to get burnt out. They lose hope because they “can’t change the world,” and feel their efforts are futile. This is the fragility of youthful hope: it can be built upon, or it can be shattered if not given the right foundation. That goes back to it being a person-to-person basis. I do think that “Are you hopeful?” is an intensely more profound question than whether someone is optimistic or pessimistic. It has a different focus, and I think that everyone would want to be able to say yes. In light of the issues around the world, though, asking someone if they are hopeful sparks an immediate cognitive systems map built on what they already know or have experienced, and a little bit of scenario planning based on where they think the world is going. So maybe the question of hopefulness goes deeper than optimism or pessimism in that way, because the answer is built on the realities of what one already knows.