“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill

I was at a meeting of the Green Thinkers book club last night. We were discussing Prof Tim Flannery’s “Atmosphere of Hope” book published on the run up to the Paris talks last December. I was actually going to review the book here, but to be honest it’s not a great piece of work, seemingly rushed out to give an alternative view to the Australian Government’s official line during the talks (Flannery was head of the Australian Climate Commission which was abolished by the incoming Abbott Government in 2013). But the curious thing is that, contrary to the title, it’s quite a depressing read.

Appropriately, the discussion around tackling climate change split amongst the pessimists and the optimists. For the former, we’re royally screwed by a toxic cocktail of greed, capitalism and corruption. For the latter, of which regular readers will guess I’m a life member, we have to utilise technology, capitalism and design to deliver a massive transformation.

We sustainability optimists are not naive about the scale of the problem, rather we use that as a spur to go further, faster. We are trying to build a vision of a glorious sustainable future, not trying to scare people into action. We use all the tools at our disposal – including the power of global capitalism to bring economies of scale to green technologies.

And, if we fail, it won’t be for lack of trying.

“No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.” – H.Keller