Apples of Hope vs. Oranges of Doom

Every environmental think-tank likely has die-hard optimists and unconvinced pessimists in its ranks. Who's right?

As the Chair of the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome (CACOR), there seem to generally be two categories of members in the organization that I facilitate. (The same delineation can be found in these Substack aisles.*) The first and most populous consists of experts in various scientific disciplines, from climate scientists to physicians, geologists to aerospace engineers, and AI theorists to policy wonks. They often look upon the great challenges facing society today and see solutions to some aspects of those looming disasters - solutions and aspects which correspond to their particular area of expertise. (And these people DO know their stuff.) Their typical conversations revolve around CO2 concentrations, renewable energy, activism events, government policies, new technology, etc.

The second, smaller group consists of theoreticians, ecological economists, and whatever I would call myself (philosopher-ecologists?). They (we) tend to be referred to as systems thinkers, and are more often talking about Modern Techno-Industrial (MTI) society, value systems, our species history, and civilizational collapse. The problem is that members of this second group are also invariably chided as the “doom-sayers” of our active conversations, and represent a great source of frustration to those in the first group who are trying to effect meaningful change in their community and beyond.

Group 1: “What a bunch of nihilists! You all think that humanity is well on its way to hell in a handbasket, and you refuse to see the solutions that we could be working on right now. That kind of pessimism contributes nothing.”

Group 2: “How are you going to implement that strategy? When has society ever pulled off something like that? Look at thousands of years of history. You’re being optimistic and pushing the Hopium, but in reality, we’re screwed.”

So who’s right?

I suspect that both are right. The problem is that they are working in completely different frames of reference (even though they often appear similar).

Those who focus on discrete problems (and I would even go so far as to include the climate emergency as a ‘discrete’ problem) often hold on to hope that a ‘solution’ (or mitigation, or adaptation) is indeed possible, and that there’s a lot that we can do to improve our fate. And they may well be right, in that discrete realm. There are good reasons for the optimism of these people. They are usually quite skilled at solving problems in everyday life. Also, the content of the arguments that fight or deny their solutions are often chock full of misinformation and disinformation. In other words, in their framework, a lot of the problems have actual solutions, hope is essential, and the enemy is either ignorance or an intentional effort to mislead and derail those solutions.

Systems thinkers, on the other hand, look at things in a much broader scope. It’s not that the hopeful optimists are necessarily wrong - they are simply looking at a different frame through a different lens. There is nothing to say that one approach is in every way superior to the other. It simply depends on what you are trying to achieve. Consider…

There is a century-old cottage that I know of on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. Some of the old doors and windows are getting difficult to open these days, because they no longer properly fit their frames. Past residents have trimmed frames and found ways to make the doors and windows jam less frequently. At one point, the problem got so bad that I helped the owners to jack up a whole corner of the cottage, thereby putting that section closer to the original square angles. That helped a lot.

However, when I was under the cottage (which rests a few feet off the ground on concrete pillars), I could see that the frosts and heaves of decades had put dramatic leans on those pillars, slowly spiraling the whole cottage into the river. The lasting solution to that problem would probably involve tearing the whole thing down and starting again - or, at the very least, rebuilding the entire ground foundation from scratch.

Does that mean that people are wrong to shave some of the frames so that the doors and windows are somewhat functional? No. And yes. If the foundation of the cottage is doomed, is that any reason to give-up on the whole vacation property in despair? Yes. And no. It all depends on your perspective. Are you looking to have a nice week at the cottage, or are you looking to buy or sell the property?

[An update that I can’t resist adding: Last week, in a massive windstorm, that cottage was knocked by a huge falling tree, and blown off those concrete pillars. No one predicted that. What are the chances that a totally unexpected event will change the course of human history in a similar fashion. (Pretty good, I should think.) Will we be ready for it?]

This is not a clash of optimists taking to the streets and pessimists sitting in armchairs. It is a mish-mash of incompatible frameworks, perspectives, and scope of vision. Nor are the actions and objectives mutually exclusive. Those of us at one end of this spectrum should cheer on the folks at the other end - both are probably necessary views and valuable pursuits!

There’s one other aspect of this debate which merits a mention. When I’m deep in the systems-thinking camp, I sometimes experience criticisms for negative thinking - not because the concepts are flawed, but because it is somehow considered ‘anti-human’ and counter-productive to have a view of reality that is not as rosy as some would like. There seems to be this thinking that if you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem. I think that’s unfair. Is the person who points out the failing pillars under the cottage really part of the problem of jammed openings? Is it really unreasonable for them to suggest that perhaps shaving wood off all of the frames would be a lengthy process that might only work for the next year or two?

On the other hand, it is equally unreasonable for the big-picture visionaries to say that the solution-focused activists are foolish, naïve, and wasting their time. The optimists are still raising awareness, they are getting people on board with some kind of hope for the future, and they are making today and tomorrow a little better for all. That’s good work.

Like many of my explorations, this is a polarity, with no right or wrong answer. I think, at the very least, we should ALL agree on that.

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[* There are too many single-crisis solution-mongers on Substack to list here. A leading writer who shares polycrisis solutions is Julian Cribb, while less optimism at the systems level is expressed by William Rees.]