The Hope podcast

Hope is a complex idea. 

As a noun, it is defined as desire accompanied by a expectation or belief that it is obtainable. As a verb, it can be defined as expecting with confidence.

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all the darkness.

Hope can be given, but hopes can also be dashed. Hope can be false, and hope can be manipulated. It can be deeply personal or highly collective. Martin Luther said that “everything that is done in the world is done by hope”, and at least in the realm of the story telling apes, I think he's right.

Orison Swett Marden claimed “there is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow” and right or wrong, good or bad, humanity has committed its energies to building a better tomorrow on the beliefs of today.

But belief is a dangerous thing.

We live in a world riddled with examples of beliefs being perverted, manipulated and weaponized by greed, selfishness, and a hunger for power, but even then it may not be as simply evil as it seems.

A myth, a rumour, or a lie; repeated with confidence sounds like truth. Belief rarely requires evidence. Continents could be claimed, populations enslaved, and empires built all on a convincing lie.

Ironically, the greek philosopher Epictitis said, 38 years before the Roman conquest of Greece, “be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant”.

Almost twenty years later, we stand squarely in the anthropocene, the natural world that sustains us buckling under the weight of our hubris. The planet's sixth mass extinction event caused by the better tomorrow we've built for the wealth of the ignorant.

If ever there was a time for the hopes of the instructed, it would be now.

Alongside the technological advances that have allowed us to wage wars across oceans that we filled with plastic, and trap ourselves in synthetic habitats with twenty four hour gyms as hamster wheels, we've also developed the ability to interpret our world like never before. We can listen to the songs of the oceans. Watch ourselves turn on the planet from space, and understand the delicate critical connections that keep our existence possible on this impossible collection of coincidences we call Earth.

We live in an age like no other. Human knowledge, connectivity, technology and ability has brought about the potential collapse of life on earth as we know it, but it is also now the only chance we have of slowing and maybe reversing some of the worst impacts we face. 

It's no secret anymore that climate change was clearly described in the 1970s by scientists working for the coal and gas industry, and that the subsequent climate change denial movement was funded and fueled by the wealth of the ignorant, very much the same as how the tobacco industry caused dispute over smoking and cancer, and the soft drink industry has misled the public about health and nutrition.

In an age when the dominant science suggests that our impacts on the environment may cause billions of human deaths, the collapse of society as we know it, and irreversible mass extinction, it's not a surprise to learn from a very recent poll that 3 out of 4 adults globally feel personally threatened by climate change. That being said, on average, 1 in 3 adults globally claimed they believed others weren't as concerned as themselves, with many wealthy countries having the number closer to 1 in every 2.

Despite the magnitude of our current predicament, there are still a lot of people worldwide fighting to safeguard the profits of the industries that have engineered our fate, many of them gaining nothing themselves in the process. It is an embarrassing state of affairs for a species that claims to be highly intelligent.

But what we lack in smarts, we make up for with resilience and tenacity. With hope.

It's important to acknowledge, as IPCC scientist Joelle Gergis did in her book; Humanity's Moment, that predicted potential futures are only that: potential. They are not prophecies of inescapable doom, but shadows of what is to come if we change nothing now. 

We have within our hands the ability, the technology and the reason to change the world, but change has never been easy, or cheap. The status quo has rarely changed from the top down, but often from the bottom up. A better tomorrow is possible, but only if we speak for it, strive for it, and fight for it today.

There are concerning suggestions that a number of people; either through their beliefs or their unwillingness to sacrifice their own present comfort, feel no urge to change anything, despite acknowledging that the climate itself is definitely changing.

Then, there are other polls that have shown that in many places, in many ways, large numbers of people, especially young people, feel hopeless and powerless to make a difference. Apathy and hopelessness have united to keep the very people who need change, and have the power to demand change, from even dreaming change is possible in the first place.

Societal change comes when enough members of a society change. Some studies say 3.5 %, some suggest 25%, but regardless of the figure, it's obvious it doesn't have to be everyone at once. Change comes as individuals speak for hope, inspire hope, and gather hopeful people around them. The hopeful instructed we need to guide us through these tumultuous times are all around us. They don't all have the profiles of Goodall, or Attenborough, or Thunberg, but they are no less inspiring. 

There are people all around the world right now speaking for the voiceless, standing up for the defenceless, and hoping, in the face of all adversity for a better tomorrow. People who often sacrifice their time, comfort and happiness for the hope of a better world.

The father of mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh said “Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.”

Jonas Salk, the man who refused to profit off curing polio, said “hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality.” 

I started a podcast about hope because sometimes I feel powerless, and helpless, and overwhelmed. Sometimes I lose hope, and when I do I look for inspiration in the courageous scientists, conservationists and educators around me who work tirelessly for a better tomorrow. 

I don't need to ask them why the fight is important. That's obvious. 

I want to know why they keep fighting, even if it seems hopeless, and more than anything, I want to understand how. t

It is a podcast about hope, by hope, for hope. I found optimism in the interviews, and drew strength from their honesty, and I truly hope you can too, because the only way our future gets better is if we can all hope together.