Active hope, on the other hand, is a practice. It’s about “becoming active participants in bringing about what we’re hoping for.”3 And, crucially, since active hope “doesn’t require our optimism, we can apply it even in areas where we feel hopeless.” Which seems to be exactly the kind of hope we need these days.

but not in a way that is consonant with an objective understanding of the situation. And by “objective” I don’t mean a cynical, realpolitik, business-as-usual understanding of the situation; I mean the cold scientific facts of even the most optimistic scenarios. So, if you’re hanging your hope on preventing catastrophe, you’re hanging your hope on

immediate threats with a fight or flight response, but here we are, stuck in a slow-motion catastrophe whose worst effects many of us alive now won’t feel for decades, if ever.