As a Climate Justice Campaigner I can feel lonely and impotent in the face of a truly existential threat. Increasing inequality and conflict make this worse.
While I am more hopeful than I have ever been, good outcomes are not guaranteed. And despair is always hovering. So, books often help nurture the hopeful spark within me. These may help boost yours too.
Active Hope – Joanna Macey and Chris Johnstone
It’s difficult to feel hopeful when our individual actions aren’t enough. But reframing hope as actively working towards a thriving future for people and nature builds the courage and compassion to try, regardless of the outcome. In turn making that future more likely.
The Understory – Richard Powers
This is one of very few books I have read multiple times. Featuring a group of disparate characters and their relationship with trees, it provides a new perspective on our view of time and our place within something so much bigger than our own short lives.
The Boudica series – Manda Scott
These stories reconnect us with indigenous Britons and how they lived with the land and each other in ways that we have entirely lost. They tell of courage in the relentless face of a ruthless ideology and show how standing up so that others can live on to keep alive the vision for a better way is as important as winning a victory.