We Need the Right Kind of Climate Optimism

In 2019, a cross-sector team of scholars, activists, and system-designers met to explore strategies for “Navigating the Great Unraveling.”11 They projected out best- and worst-case scenarios for the year 2040 across four key drivers: available energy, degree of climate change, level of economic activity, and amount of accessible freshwater. For cli

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of succeeding, according to a recent study based on current emissions trends, are one in 20. If by some miracle we are able to limit warming to two degrees, we will only have to negotiate the extinction of the world’s tropical reefs, sea-level rise of several meters and the abandonment of the Persian Gulf. The climate scientist James Hansen has cal

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To avoid doomism, Focus 20 percent on problems, and 80 percent on solutions. He’s come to understand that there’s a lifetime of work ahead, and concentrates on grassroots movements and affecting local change. “That work fulfills me,” he said, “and keeps me optimistic about a future in which we can still survive and thrive.”