Author: Mara van der Lugt
The climate debate is rife with calls for optimism. While temperatures rise and disasters intensify, we are asked to maintain optimism and hope, as if the real threat is pessimism and despair.
In this erudite and engaging book, Mara van der Lugt argues that this is a mistake: Crude optimism can no longer be a virtue in a breaking world, and may well prove to be our besetting vice.
In an age of climate change and ecological devastation, the virtue we need is hopeful pessimism. Drawing on thinkers that range from J.R.R.Tolkien and Mary Shelley to Albert Camus and Jonathan Lear, van der Lugt invites us to rethink what we thought we knew about optimism and pessimism.
