I have been reading a very helpful and hopeful book: The Great Disruption by Paul Gilding. Unlike most authors he takes a positive view of the effect of rapidly rising oil prices, food price hikes and shortages and increasingly chaotic warming climate. How can what will result in economic disaster be positive ? He predicts a period of chaos and instability in nations - it will take a generation in which we make the transition - but is hopeful about the longer term. We can make a better society not founded on the ideology of constant growth.
What strikes me is the honesty with which he deals with despair. He tells how he burst into tears during a talk he was giving. He refers to other climate commentators like James Lovelock who predicts that the collapse of cvilisation is now inevitable but argues that they are wrong. He says:
While despair is a stage I think we all need to arrive at, individually and collectively, it's also one that we can and must move through. We face the same challenege when we face a serious personal loss. We go from denial to despiar. Then at some point we need to move on from despair - it's not a place in whivh people want to saty , even though it can be a difficult place to leave. This doesn't require us to forget the loss, or deny the sadness, but it does mean that we have to re-find hope and empower ourselves through it. Otherwise we spiral into decay. (Page 101)
It's my firm belief that Christian practice can help us deal with this move from despair to hope.