An Invitation to Create Climate Hope Together

Introductory Series — Post #1

Welcome to the Climate Hope Together Substack! This inaugural post is also the first in a 12-part Introductory Series that will help set the stage for all that comes next. So let’s get started!

Me and my wife Kara in Olympic National Park. Photo Credit: Jim Ball

Is there hope that something can be done about climate change, especially given the moment we are in? Can the opposition be overcome? Can it be solved? Is it too late?

These questions come up for all of us who have concerns about climate change.

What we must recognize, however, is a problem inherent in such questions, a problem that will sink us.

They are all passive.

Is someone else, something else, going to save us? Can some expert or guru or powerful leader or all three reassure us that everything will be all right in the end? After all, I’m just one person. I can’t solve a global problem.

If everyone is waiting for someone else to give them reassurance — that, yes, it’s all under control, yes, the opposition will be overcome, yes, it will all work out in the end, yes, you don’t need to worry, yes there is hope — then we are in deep trouble.

I’m not a guru, or an expert, or a powerful leader. But let me start our journey together with this:

I believe there is still hope because I believe in us.

This Substack is an invitation to action. It is an invitation to:

• become a part of what will be the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world, the Climate Movement;

• become a Climate Action Supporter if you are not ready to join a movement; we won’t overcome climate change unless we have both a movement and Climate Action Supporters, who are the clinchers, the closers, the action sustainers, the stable base of popular support for all we do;

• join together to overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything;

• answer the call to do what’s right, to work together to stop bad stuff, set wrong right, and make things better — the three actions of justice;

• affirm the Better Future Covenant that together we will leave today’s children and their children and subsequent generations a better world free from pollution and the threat of climate change, a world with justice and prosperity where everyone has what they need to live the lives intended for them, where everyone can become who they were meant to be;

• work together to make the impossible possible and the possible actual and the actual beautiful — all at the speed and scale necessary as we make hope happen by making our future come faster;

• join with others who know what time it is: kairos-climate-time.

When you accept this invitation you will find hope for our journey. That’s because:

• Working together brings hope.

• Taking actions that make a difference brings hope.

• Being a part of the fight for justice brings hope.

• Creating a better future brings hope.

• Doing all of these things out of love brings hope.

When you join us you will discover that we are not waiting for someone to make us feel hope. We are not desperate for our next hope-fix, as if hope’s purpose is to numb us to reality. We are not sitting slumped somewhere, wondering if anybody cares, waiting for somebody to do something. We are not alone in despair, bereft of any sense of care.

No.

We are turning No into Yes. Wrong into right. Night into day.

We are making hope happen, a hope that endures, a hope based on the reality we are creating together.

Emily Dickinson said: “Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.”

Photo by Robert Murray on Unsplash

The dawn is here. Together we will walk through doors into the dawn shining on our faces, lighting our way as we create a better more beautiful world. We are no longer looking for hope. Together, we are the hope as we make hope happen. We are hope-makers and beauty-creators.

It comes down to this: we are the hope we’ve been waiting for.¹

We must.

We can.

We will make hope happen together, our future come faster, and our world more beautiful.

And that’s why I still have hope. That’s why this Substack exists. Join me!

1. For years now I have been using the phrase “We are the hope we’ve been waiting for.” My memory is that it came into my brain as a seemingly original thought. Recently it was pointed out to me that a similar phrase has been around for awhile: “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” The poet June Jordan published this phrase in 1980. Alice Walker used it in a book title. Senator Barack Obama used it in a speech on Super Tuesday when campaigning for president. Apparently, it has become a common saying in certain circles. Had I heard it before? I have no idea. But I’m glad to highlight this earlier usage of a similar phrase, glad to follow in these footsteps.