Hope in a time of Climate and Nature Collapse

Columban Sister Kate Midgley along with Cecilia Bullock, reflect on despair and hope amidst the climate crisis, drawing on faith, love, and the resilience of nature to inspire action, even when immediate results seem uncertain. This article features in the Spring 2025 issue of Vocation for Justice.

As I – a Columban sister – arrived to take part in the Christian Climate Action weekly Earth Vigil outside the Westminster Parliament recently, a young man was crouched in front of another vigiler sitting on a low stool, and was asking “Don’t you despair?” This is a question which I’m sure many of us can resonate with.

We know that the United Nations COP process and governments worldwide are consistently failing to take the measures needed to address the climate and nature crises. We know that we are using up the resources of 1.75 Earths every year, which of course. sooner or later, will run out. We know that 69% of wildlife has disappeared since 1970. Pope Francis acknowledged all of this in Laudate Deum, his 2023 follow-up to Laudato Si’. He said, “the world in which we live is collapsing and may be near the breaking point” (LD #2).

In the words of Kimberley Hare, “we face a meta-crisis: a whole series of interconnected predicaments that mean our current ways of living are unravelling and possibly even collapsing entirely.” We can all see this on our news every day – wars, political turmoil, increasing extreme weather events etc.

I share this in the spirit of James Baldwin who said: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced”. Truly, facing our reality we may find a way forward. So, where and what is hope? St Paul refers to ‘hope against hope’; a refusal to give up the will to live even though it’s not clear how to. (see Romans 4:18).

Our patron St. Columban said, “If you wish to know the Creator, understand the Creation”. In the 2024 ‘Pilgrimage for the Planet’ along the River Thames, during the Season of Creation, participants looked for signs of hope in nature; that is signs of resilience, courage, endurance, perseverance, patience and fragility as we walked. We also looked for signs of defiant joy in nature. In the 2024 Season of Creation reflection, we read: “There’s a phrase commonly attributed to St Augustine of Hippo that says, ‘Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.’ It is not about waiting for a magic miracle. Hope is trust that our action makes sense even if the results of this action are not immediately seen” (see Romans 8:24).

In his book Life After Doom Brian McLaren says: “If we can see a likely path to our desired outcome, we have hope; if we can see no possible path to our desired outcome, we have despair. If we are unsure whether there is a possible path or not, we keep hope alive, but it remains vulnerable to defeat if that path is closed.

When our prime motive is love, a different logic comes into play… Love may or may not provide a way through to a solution to our predicament, but it will provide a way forward in our predicament, one step into the unknown at a time. Sustained by this fierce love, we may persevere long enough that, to our surprise, a new way may appear where there had been no way. At that point, we will have reasons for hope again. But even if hope never returns, we will live by love through our final breath. To put it differently, even if we lose hope for a good outcome, we need not lose hope of being good people, as we are able: courageous, wise, kind, loving, in defiance of all that is bad around us.

… We feel arising within us this sustained declaration: We will live as beautifully, bravely, and kindly as we can as long as we can, no matter how ugly, scary, and mean the world becomes, even if failure and death seem inevitable… Hope is complicated. But … even if hope fails, something bigger can replace it, and that is love.”

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