Still Hopeful – Maude Barlow
Standing under a newly leafed tree silvered by a new moon, I remembered the words of a PEI farmer friend who always said that when he is overwhelmed, he stops thinking of the enormity of the challenges he is facing and instead asks himself one simple question: What is the next appropriate step to take? Then he takes it. (xii)
To start, I want to be clear that when I speak of hope, I am not talking about uninformed optimism – what Plato called “gullible” hope. The ancient Greeks warned of the danger of espousing hope based on insufficient knowledge that could lead to poor decisions in war and politics. This is not a call for cheerful optimism nor a denial of the urgent issues that we collectively face. Certainly I have done my share of disseminating the distressing facts and statistics on the climate crisis and in particular the threat to the world’s water. (2)
Wise hope requires that we open ourselves to what we do not know, what we cannot know, and to being perpetually surprised. Wise hope embraces the possibility of transformation and the understanding that what we do matters, even though how and when it will matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand. (3)
Maude Barlow. Still Hopeful: Lessons from a Lifetime of Activism. Toronto. ECW Press, 2022.
For more information on the global network of Blue Communities, a movement Maude Barlow initiated, follow this link:
