On Living on Earth of 6 November 2009, Jeff Young had an interesting piece on the power of religious communities in inspiring people to fight environmental problems. What I found the most interesting was the analysis that one crucial point is missing from all the scientific talk: hope. The interviewee, Martin Palmer, used the comparison with fasting in order to stress the power of hope: as long as you promise a feast, you can get people to fast.
As far as I could hear, he didn’t concretely tell how that would transpose to climate change but I certainly agree that we usually hear either gloomy or careless point of views. I guess we, who try our best at preserving the environment, have some sort of hope (otherwise we would give up). Many of the people I talk to, however, seem to have lost hope. It might be unless to convince them of anything unless we restore that hope first.