Difficult Hope

Abstract

Abstract Reports about the accelerating and potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, along with our insufficient efforts to address it, have generated two competing temptations: (1) presumption among those who deny the crisis or assume some technological solution will avert it and (2) despair among those who worry it is already too late. Both risk undermining the urgent action needed to address the crisis. This chapter seeks to resist these temptations by gleaning insights from Wendell Berry, one of America’s most influential environmentalists. Drawing on numerous books, essays, and a rare personal interview, the chapter reconstructs Berry’s account of hope as a practical virtue that avoids presumption and despair. It explores the relationship between hope and action and highlights how living exemplars provide grounds for hope and models for emulation. Berry is one such exemplar who acknowledges the difficult realities that tempt despair while supplying legitimate grounds for hope.