Climate Hope: Stories of Action in an Age of Global Crisis

“A beautiful journey into what it means to be hopeful despite present projections . . .”

If you need optimism in the face of climate change and the chaotic rhetoric around how we might address it—and let’s be honest, we all do—the next book you pick up should be David Geselbracht’s Climate Hope: Stories of Action in an Age of Global Crisis. It will strengthen an aching heart.

Why focus on hope? Because climate change is so daunting, many feel overwhelmed and choose to ignore the problem. Geselbracht wants to give us reason to act.

Action is empowering. It is action that gives hope. By focusing on hope, people might get out of their chairs and do something, creating a positive chain of events. Geselbracht wants to underscore our agency as human beings, our ability to be effective, to control the outcomes of our actions and have faith in our ability to address what might otherwise feel overwhelming. The point of this book is that we still have opportunity to change course. The author provides evidence that others are doing just that, changing course. We can lend our effort to the stream.

What’s more, hope in the face of adversity might lead to “radical innovation.” What kinds of solutions can be found in evolving and sometimes perplexing situations? Many. We simply have to be open to different ways of thinking and being.

Creativity. Activism. Non-Western and indigenous worldviews. Each can influence our ideas and be developed to create novel solutions. By sharing the stories recounted in Climate Hope, Geselbracht plants in the reader seeds that could germinate into novel perspectives that address issues once thought intractable. This book is his action, his way of developing hope in himself and others.

Time and again, the author underscores that not all the news about climate is bad. While on a global scale the needle still isn’t moving enough in the direction we have collectively agreed it needs to, on the local level there are ample initiatives that indicate that positive impact is still possible, and that future generations need not inherit a wasteland, assuming they are born to receive anything at all.

While instructive, the stories are not road maps to the future. Rather, they are meant to inspire and inform the reader to develop a broader sense of what is possible. Not meant to be directly replicated, the stories are designed to help others—you—dream of what might be done in your own community, to change it in ways that will help it thrive.

One of the most uplifting aspects of the book is that it shares stories that the general reader may not be familiar with. The first chapter begins by introducing a Philadelphia woman explorer who documents the recession of a glacier in Canada, before women had the right to vote in the United States. The book challenges the reader again and again to think in new ways, to try on different perspectives, to think about climate change through lenses that are outside the technical, western point of view.

Like other authors, Geselbracht notes that it is often the most marginalized—who have done the least to create the climate crisis—who are the first to pay the cost of climate change. First Nations groups have long been sounding the alarm, and losing their homes, while influential segments of our societies put up barriers to change. These communities are evidence that climate change is real, and it is happening now, whether we address the issue or not.

“Global warming is a war of the rich against the poor.” That was the refrain of protestors in Glasgow at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference. Why focus on this moment, which did not lead to what some hoped would be a revolution of action on climate change? Because it allows the reader to see the opportunity for connection in protest, no matter the immediate outcomes. Protests allow people to meet, talk, and exchange ideas. It is one meeting place among many where hope might grow.

Via a beautiful journey into what it means to be hopeful despite present projections, David Geselbracht shares a personal view on how each of us can cultivate an optimistic perspective that will propel us into action. Action gives occasional wins, which generates greater hope. The future is not yet set.

If you want to be inspired, start by reading Climate Hope.