The Indian writer Amitav Ghosh also said that the climate crisis is a cultural crisis, and thus a crisis of imagination.

In Hope in the Dark you wrote that hope requires imagination and clarity, and in your latest essay published by the Guardian you said that every crisis is a storytelling crisis.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity. I spoke with Solnit about hope and the future of climate action in the face of intensifying impacts from global warming, oil and gas industry propaganda and greenwashing, violence against activists, and inaction by political leaders. To celebrate its one-year anniversary, I wanted to depart from the usual format to focus on the essential role of activism and hope in combating the forces of delay and denial. I published the first Gaslit column a year ago this month. The pair are also transforming the project into a book, coming April 2023, with contributions by activists, authors, experts, journalists, and others from around the globe. These same convictions are at the core of Solnit’s and storyteller Thelma Young Lutunatabua’s most recent project, Not Too Late, which offers perspectives, resources, and “good paths forward” for those who care about the climate. It’s this last element, hope, that can become “an electrifying force in the present,” Solnit writes, “a sense that there might be a door at some point, some way out of the problems of the present moment even before it is found or followed.”Īs activists and others work towards this door, they do so with the belief that there is still time to act and that the climate is worth fighting for.

When we talk about any movement, including the push for climate action, we’re talking about a “zeitgeist, a change in the air,” writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit writes in her essay-turned-book Hope in the Dark, which focuses on the intersection of activism, social change, and hope. The climate movement is working incessantly to make this clear to everyone. And they are delivering a clear and consistent message: What has long been accepted as the status quo - expanding fossil fuels, investing in polluting industries, oil and gas propaganda, greenwashing, climate change denial, governmental delay in climate action - is simply not acceptable anymore. From throwing soup against paintings, to blocking roads, to striking for the climate, to stopping private jets from taking off, activists worldwide are pushing harder than ever for action to address global warming.

Rebecca solnit hope