Book review: Hope Matters

Hope Matters: Why Changing the Way We Think is Critical to Solving the Environmental Crisis

Elin Kelsey. 2020. Greystone Books. [ISBN 978-1-77164-777-9. 230 pages, including index. US$22.95 (softcover).]

Previously published as: Hart, G. 2021. Book review: Hope Matters: Why Changing the Way We Think is Critical to Solving the Environmental Crisis. Technical Communication 68(2):106.

Crisis communication is difficult even for small, local problems. When problems extend to the whole world, as in the global environmental crisis, the challenge becomes daunting. How can we motivate people to act when problems seem insurmountable? In Hope Matters: Why Changing the Way We Think is Critical to Solving the Environmental Crisis, Elin Kelsey provides the answer: If our goal is to motivate action, we must give reasons to hope, without trivializing the problem. She defines hope as optimism based on the possibility of agency and action, not wishful thinking. This is the difference between investing your savings and buying lottery tickets. Focusing relentlessly on negative stories to convince audiences the problem is real creates helplessness and inaction rather than the desired hopeful willingness to act.

Large problems overwhelm us and motivate inaction. Breaking them into smaller problems that are more easily solved makes them feel manageable. Each successful act encourages us to tackle more or larger challenges, as our sense of accomplishment promotes engagement and continuing action. Real-time feedback such as electricity meters and full recycling bins make progress tangible. Reminding people of their agency is essential when the situation seems grimmest; our audience must not move from “I feel hopeless” to “the situation is hopeless”. Forgiving ourselves when we fail or despair can restore courage and liberate us from demotivational fear-based narratives. We understand our reality by creating explanatory stories, so we must create more optimistic stories. After all, we’re not starting at zero: we’ve already accomplished much and can do more.

Kelsey provides many success stories, and links to collections such as the Solution Stories Tracker. The Earth Optimism Summit offers another path to success. Greta Thunberg taught us that building community builds resilience because it creates a sense of support and collective action. Social media have therefore become an increasingly crucial communication medium, particularly for the young. As we learned from Covid-19, the words of our social groups can be more persuasive than the words of experts. Community teaches us hope, and hope and despair are both contagious. Which would you rather spread?

Kelsey presents a concise and powerful evidence-based argument for spreading hope based on a consideration of the psychological, social, philosophical, and spiritual factors that motivate us. Although she focuses on the environmental crisis, her message is broadly applicable to other communication challenges. For example, technical communicators have traditionally neglected the emotional responses that determine how people act. Language choice is also important: the binary either/or (succeed/fail) is less effective than both/and: bad and good both exist, and recognizing the bad can motivate us to act, while recognizing the good leads to hope. It’s time we paid more attention to these factors.