Rob's two most recent books, From What Is to What If and How to Fall in Love with the Future, have made him one of the most distinctive voices in the climate space, not for telling people how bad things are, but for insisting that giving people something to long for is the most radical thing any of us can do. 

In this episode, we cover:

  • Why cynicism isn't clever, it's just lazy! It feels like intelligence because it's always proved right; you can forever find reasons to despair. But Rob argues it's a self-reinforcing spiral that actively prevents the kind of action that might change things, and that hopelessness isn't a breeding ground for good things. 
  • "Hoping to" versus "hoping that" —passive hope (hoping that something will happen) is very different from active, grounded hope. 
  • The cultivation of longing at scale is the biggest task of the climate movement, and the people who know how to cultivate desire aren't scientists, they're artists, poets, and the people who work in advertising.  
  • The internet as a war on attention, and what that means for green communicators  

What emerges from this conversation is both a provocation and an invitation. The future as we currently envision it is dark and scary and we need to create a sense of longing or what Rob calls “memories of the future” for a more positive outcome to give people something to move towards rather than run away from. 

More from Rob

Website: https://www.robhopkins.net/

Podcast: https://www.robhopkins.net/podcast/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yoodooright1968

Resources mentioned: 

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PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast

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