Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of doom and gloom out there about the climate crisis. There’s no way of getting around the fact that the situation is extremely bleak, with the latest IPCC report suggesting we could surpass 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming as early as the next decade. Meanwhile, climate-related disasters are on the rise: think of the extreme heatwaves in Europe last summer, or the devastating floods in Pakistan, or the on-going drought that’s affecting millions in the Horn of Africa.

Christiana Figueres: [00:07:23] Well, I'm left without words. Obviously left completely speechless here. Ariana Brocious: I love that last line and this idea of finding paradise, of finding solace and comfort and community and togetherness in the worst of times. And, uh, you write in that essay and I think in some other places about responses to disasters like Hurricane Katrina. So, how did you come to this idea that these times that can seem like the most dire can actually be, um, really powerful and uplifting and community building?Shaped by the clear-eyed wisdom of editors Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua, and enhanced by illustrations by David Solnit, Not Too Late is a guide to take us from climate crisis to climate hope.

As citizens of the Earth, we have a responsibility to participate. As citizens massed together, we have the power to affect change, and it is only on that scale that enough change can happen. Individual choices can slowly scale up, or sometimes be catalysts, but we’ve run out of time for the slow. It is not the things we refrain from doing, but those things we do passionately, and together, that will count the most. And personal change is not separate from collective change: in a municipality powered by clean energy, for instance, everyone is a clean-energy consumer. Humble, ordinary stuff. People doing what they can, where they can, joining up with other like-minded folks to rebuild, repair, and stand off the rising dark. Movements, campaigns, organisations, alliances and networks are how ordinary people become powerful – so powerful that you can see they inspire terror in elites, governments and corporations alike, who devote themselves to trying to stifle and undermine them. But these places are also where you meet dreamers, idealists, altruists – people who believe in living by principle. You meet people who are hopeful, or even more than hopeful: great movements often begin with people fighting for things that seem all but impossible at the outset, whether an end to slavery, votes for women or rights for LGTBQ+ people.

The Tyee

We imagine hope as something that has to do with the future solely, but you’ve underscored it’s not just about the future. What is the role of memory in hope?

An energizing case for hope about the climate, from Rebecca Solnit ("the voice of the resistance"– New York Times), climate activist Thelma Young Lutunatabua, and a chorus of voices calling on us to rise to the moment.

Christiana Figueres: [00:13:57] And well they're fighting for their own survival at the expense of the survival of humanity.